Recently I had the opportunity to look after a friend’s home while she was away. We kidded it might be a vacation for me. Although work was still on the calendar, I did rearrange things such that I had a lot of time alone. What I discovered was a missing piece to my serenity.

Only my family knew where I was staying, and they honored me with the solitude I was asking for. When I first arrived, my mornings began reading a chapter of my book and then a meditation in the sunshine of her east backyard. The only sound was the passing of cars.  I spent the day working from her bright kitchen, taking time for lunch and finishing early to run errands or meet a friend for happy hour. I’d come home to the smells of the crockpot dinner I had organized earlier.

All this made me feel brave enough to experiment. I poured a glass of wine and asked Google to play Boston. I wasn’t sure if the music would trigger me when I was feeling so Zen-like and thought if it did, it didn’t matter.  I was alone. As if my Angels were thinking the same thing, the first song to come over the speaker was “More than a feeling”-my favorite. It took me back to the summer of 1977 in Montana and I found myself dancing, singing the lyrics out loud. The songs took me back to the girl I used to be.

I enlisted this musical therapy each afternoon after that. Asking Google to play Journey, Cat Stevens, Shawn Phillips, Roberta Flack. The music of my youth. Before I got busy, old, forgotten.  They were affirmations that rejuvenated something deep within. They carried laughter and tears with each tune.

And with each play, I remembered the messages that became the foundation of my beliefs, of what I wanted for earth, for life, for love. For myself. I couldn’t wait for the workday to end such that I would be alone, sitting and listening to the lessons taught to me in the early days.  Before regrets, before tragedy.

“…The girl child of loveliness…woman, angry now… woman, of the land, …” I am back to my youth. I am wearing long flowing dresses of cotton, and gold bangles adorn my arm. I am fearless. I am confident. I am saving the underdog. I have purpose. The music of my youth flooded over me with happy memories of all that was possible. I am transferred to another time.  And then the songs end, and I sit in the quiet and ask myself, “Where, oh God, where is she now?”

Music is powerful because it speaks to the soul. The lyrics are lessons, reminders, encouragement of who we are. Or were. Or want to be. When we are young, they are idealistic. Listening to the lyrics now, much older, the phrases cut deeper, shout out louder. That was the interesting discovery I made listening to music from my youth.

 Songs can fill our heart with hope, joy or at the very least, reflection. Music was so important to me. It was my lifeline in times when I was struggling and felt that no one was listening. Zane loved music. It was his lifeline also. Maybe for the same reasons. Maybe for different reasons. I can add that to my list of topics to talk to him about when we are together again.

What I do know is that his love for music, he shared with me. I get how and why it is the best free therapy available. I am glad he consumed it. His love for music was why it has always been my biggest trigger. In my grief, I was forgetting that it is also therapy. Therapy that I didn’t know I needed until I was singing along with the memories of my own youth.