Happy Valentine’s Day, friends. Brian made me a very sweet Spotify playlist and texted it to me this AM so I could enjoy first thing; a really sweet throwback gesture. I remember the treasured burned-CD mixes from when we started dating and on special occasions since — a “birth” playlist, my 30th birthday, etc. As I listened to one of the Sara Bareilles tracks he included, my chest felt so heavy with emotion and gratitude. Music has connected us for so much of our relationship, expressing what can’t be put into words. I’ve always had music in my life, too, from playing violin to singing in choir from a young age. I don’t feel like I can write this without sounding ridiculous, but so often I feel overwhelmed by this weighty thought that music is everything. You know what I mean though?
I remember after I had Emilia and was home from the hospital in this haze of bliss and exhaustion and elation, I kept Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” playing non-stop on my Bose speakers. Months later in the serendipitous way of life, I stood front and center at the Main Stage at Newport Folk Festival as Glen Hansard covered it on acoustic guitar. No special reason to cover THAT specific song, or anything by Van Morrison. Only it was MY song for my daughter, Emilia, and I happened to have wandered myself at just that right moment to that particular stage, because I loved the film, “Once” and wanted to hear him perform some of the songs from it. The crowd thinned. I got really close. I couldn’t have known the cover was coming, or how like a religious experience it would feel to hear it performed unexpectedly like that. Or how I’d known before he even started to play, after mentioning that he loved Van Morrison, that my song was coming. I could barely breathe as I recognized it. In that moment, I felt this otherworldly sense of connection. A vague tugging of deja-vu. An awakening from a dream feeling as though I’d lived the dream many times over.
Like I said, sometimes it feels overwhelming realizing that music is everything.
Married with Style 