As a new monthly Welcome Columnist, I ask you to allow me to introduce to you who I am, through a theory realized early on in my life. I am a woman who spent her youth being raised in rural America: Talent Oregon. My parents–salt of the earth: working stiffs; uncomplicated; loving; dreams their compass; truth, their path. Consequently, I am their shadow in ways I fought as a young’n and embrace as, well let’s just say, as a not so young’n.
My Father, my companion when it came to dreaming and talking about what can be and what I want it to be, would take me fishing out on Fish Lake and we’d discover every bit of life in front of us; and discuss every bit of life behind us. We would have to laugh sometimes, because if we were paying close attention, we would sometimes discover that which we couldn’t define, which would ultimately distill itself to a “right now”…and boy, it was so wonderful, to this day, I still stumble over the words to define it aptly. He taught me—of course, when I wasn’t looking—what it’s like to know yourself in partnership with the world. He would stop and say, “Robin, listen.” Not always listening to just your heart, but listening to the splish-splash of a stone skipping across the water; the quiet after you’ve made a wish or an owl hooting at the moon with stars hanging in the still of an August night. He taught me how to glean the wisdom of the ordinary and then I taught him just how quickly I could make it extraordinary. My Mama, on the other hand taught me rhythms. She is a singer at heart—life is her melody. Her meters are time, love, heartfelt statements which could make a difference. She was excellent at every count and at every measure; she could switch life up or down from a major to a minor. Every night after dinner dishes, we would spend our evening singing old World War ll songs while my Uncle Bob accompanied us on his ukulele. Those moments of recall are powerful for me; by simply smiling and singing along I learned the joy in my heart was as connected to my soul as much as my soul was connected to theirs while we sang and played. It taught me time was relative, not linear; it taught me the power of music; it taught me that even dancing flees make their own tune and as small as the sound is, there is nothing quite like it.
I saw the similar rhythms in college—where my days were youthfully frantic and bells rang to take me from class to class. I heard the music of holidays, the rhythm of the hub-bub: Grandmothers, Aunties, Mama in the kitchen—their conversations humming over the children with the slight tinkling of tableware and crystal clinking in the distance, almost as if it were birds singing out the impending celebration. And I certainly felt it when my Father passed away 14 years ago: a quiet, so incredibly quiet, it could have been the strings warming up in the pit, preparing for the dirge of their lives and yet, the only sound to be noticed was the ticking clock while it marked the minutes of tears spilling over memories. And of course with every mortal passing we hear the outbursts of laughter, as if we had just recalled a moment worth a tympanic pleasure.
Music, rhythms, and measures: they are all words not just for the making, but also for the living, the dying, and the being. They are the expressions and actions which lend us comfort; notifying us it is time for dinner; for breakfast. Music wakes the sun and lulls the moon. It fills our hearts with hope; and tames the beasts who roar. It melodically and incidentally underscores the drama which composes the whole of life.
I swiftly learned as a young girl, we all share in the majors, minors, flats and sharps. We all live on the same pages, brilliantly orchestrated while the music is appropriately penned as life. And so with another new year nearing, let me be the reminder—listen for the splish-splash; look for the owls, let the stars tell you the time is now and you are standing in the middle of anything you desire.