The other morning I deviated from my usual robotic state of commuting and dropped into one of the fine peddlers of high quality java near my home . My decision was immediately reinforced by the sounds of "So Long Marianne" by Leonard Cohen playing in the background as I waited for my dark steamy brew.Although it doesn't happen as often now, there are still moments where certain songs played in public can transform the immediate environment into a sacred space. This is especially true of certain songs that are so well studied, absorbed and inextricably embedded in my psyche that I forget sometimes they are part of a larger world, outside of my own private universe.
"So long, Marianne It's time that we began to laugh and cry, and cry and laugh about it all again"
The familiar chorus filled the room with a refrain that beckons like the siren's call daring you to no longer stay the course, despite impending peril. It demands the need to step back and examine the elusiveness of fleeting human connection or the unanswered call of the heart's deepest longings.
Whatever it says, it fills empty spaces with life. It reminds me to look beyond my own interior landscape and remember to make connections to a larger world that I often neglect in the midst of my day to day routine.
A well placed song can do this sort of thing.....
2 comments:
Moments like that tend to happen for me in the grocery store. Songs always tend to hit me when I'm in the produce aisle...
I think that it's increasingly less present these days because our lives have become saturated with media, noise, and moving images. After a while you get numb to it all.
And I'll tell you, I love Quaker service because it's an hour's worth of sustained silence. One hardly ever gets that anymore, particularly in a group of people.
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