Castle in the Clouds

You know the song?  I assume you know the song, because just a few years ago the movie adaptation was the talk of the town.  The song, it is beautiful, emotion filled, poetry music.  It is lovely.

 

In college I took a music class to make me a required well rounded student, and it was good for me.  My class was musical theatre.  The music behind the theatrical production.  The inner workings of the art produced.

 

As a watcher of musicals, plays and such, I enjoyed the class.  I picked Les Miserables as the show topic for my big huge project.  I listened to the music over and over.  I knew the story, but now I knew, in a deeper way, the emotions.

 

I love the story of Les Miserables.  I love the redemption and the exhibit of true character.  I love what seems to be the black and white of evil, and yet there are the questions that seem so...grey.  They can only be answered in the grey.  And at the same time there are the messages that are so counter cultural.  Lavish forgiveness. Denouncement of fortune for the sake of statement of beliefs and follow through.  A questioning of judgement.  Is is ok to lie and steal for "good reasons?"

 

And in the middle of it all there is a time to dream.  There is an escape.  The past for some people becomes wiped clean.  A castle in the clouds.

 

I go to my own castle in the clouds.  I escape from the world.  And sometimes we need to create those castles.  The world is just too much right now.  People are struggling and others are wielding cruelty in barbaric ways.  I can do nothing, so I go to the castle.  And the king of the castle, he listens and comforts and then asks me how I will help those outside the castle.  And I shake my head and ask What tangible thing I could do?

I don't have an answer.  

Music Makes Me Happy

Source: thebluepeonyblog.blogspot.com via Haleigh on Pinterest

You know what I love, that I have had a song stuck in my head.  I make sure to have it come on whenever I get in the car this week.  The voice is rich and the lyrics are strung to a melody that lets me sing my heart out.  For a few minutes it’s just me singing…to my car.  And I have learned that it doesn’t matter if the neighbor is walking past me, or if the guy in his giant truck laughs at me, or if the little old lady looks at me quizzically.  I am using my voice in a sweet way.

I have a fun fact about me; I sing in the car, when I’m alone, and especially on car trips.  It keeps me awake, focused, and makes the miles go faster.  This last car trip that happened just a few days ago was a flashback through my life in music.  I put the ipod on shuffle and sung.  There were 90’s worship songs, boy band sagas of elementary school, some 80’s hits, and then some indie, even some instrumental to round out the mix.  It was eclectic.  Life is eclectic. 

I have been thinking about what it means to have variety in life and this is one of the ways that I see it so clearly.  Music is a memory maker for me.  Certain songs are associated with certain events.  Music speaks to me and I learned a long time ago that it is a language. 

If you’ve been around here you would know that I am not a language person in the fact that I don’t pick them up easily.  But I feel languages.  They ring in the depths of my heart and my ears perk up when I hear an unfamiliar tone.  Music is a language to me.  I feel it, I can move to it, I can even speak it…but I am not fluent.  I can’t read or write it, but it speaks to me and I speak back.

Do you speak music?  Or language?  Or maybe you speak art?  Maybe you speak math or chemistry?

What do you speak and have you truly spoken it from the depths of your soul lately?

This is the artist I am loving and one of my favorites by her

Music to My Ears

The sound of a language is music to my ears.

As I sat on the lawn studying for my class, 5 international students came and sat in a circle.  They grinned at one another, laughing.  And then the words started to flow.  They were softly spoken and only brash from the language, not in the harsh American English tone.   The French flowed from their mouths and the laughs ensued.  Also did the sharing.  One sandwich was produced, cut in half and it was passed around the circle.  The cigarettes came out and at first all I could do was smell the smoke.  And somehow it doesn’t bother me anymore.  It is a smell that though I would rather not smell it and though I do not want people to have the health effects, it is a part of the culture.  It is a way of life.

I wanted in on the conversation.  Every once in awhile a word would come wafting my way and I would understand.  That one word. 

It was hard not to stare, not to be interested.  But I also was timid.  I don’t know French.  I don’t know the culture.  I don’t know how to approach.  But I do know that I was offered a window into their life.  Just to be in the presence of a little difference was refreshing.

What is changing your outlook today?  What is making you feel refreshed?

Sweet On You {Stuck in My Head}

I have had this song stuck in my head all day. 

I like it.  I hope you do too.

 

Sweet On You

Beth Whitney