The gift of music ...

When I was a teenager working on the Greens Crew at the local golf course, I drove my boss to absolute distraction by insisting on wearing my Sony Walkman (the yellow sports version) ALL the time.

Dave wouldn't have minded except for ... losing a trailer and not discovering its absence until I was at the OTHER side of the golf course ... leaking oil across several fairways before noticing the streak ... and the ever popular: mowing the rough while golfers are trying to play through.

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Dave decreed - "no walk mans" and we got sneakier ... we rigged them in our hard hats, hid them in our clothing, and tucked them into the tool boxes on the machinery ... In short: We needed our music, and we kept wearing them ... We defied him because music kept our brains from being dulled by the monotony of many of the tasks we had before us ... The music kept us from losing our minds ...

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I had forgotten how important music is to me until recently ... midnight drives in the van with the music blaring ... riding my bike with my mp3 player playing ... sitting at my computer with a coffee in hand listening to the latest offering of "sitting at the sidebar" on "At The Half Note" ... where ever it is, and whatever kind of music it is ... I've remembered how important music is when your life begins to take unexpected twists, turns and downward spirals ...

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Over and over I find myself drawn to pieces of music that speak to my soul ... my tastes range from Folk to Jazz to Classical and almost anything in between ... I could be chillin to Coltrane, Marley or even something from today's top 40 ...

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It's the connectedness that is important - a feeling that in the midst of EVERYTHING, there is more than this moment ... there is still light and life and beauty ... and there is MORE than the muck I find myself enveloped in ...

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Music, like the scene in The Shawshank Redemption reminds us, can lift the soul far beyond the grey drab walls of any prison cell, and for a moment set us free to soar ... I remembered that this morning as I listened to Katie's latest offering "At the Half Note" ... and I need to remind myself of this more often as I move through my day ...