Music, Music, Music

I'm organizing my charts (sheet music) today...don't know how things got so out of control. However, I feel compelled to write about music, in general, and the impact it has on our lives.

I can't imagine a life without music. I hear people say all the time how certain songs tranport them back to a time in their lives where it was nice to reminisce. When I sang, "Yesterday," at one of my cabarets at The Gardenia, one of my friends said he could remember driving to this girl's house for their first date when he heard that song on the radio. I thought, "How nice." I hadn't really had any song impact me that way until one day.

We were bbq'ing on the weekend, just the two of us...watching a PBS station playing songs from my teenage years. I was so enjoying singing along to these wonderful songs when I felt this overwhelming sensation that caused me to run up the stairs and into the bedroom. I started sobbing uncontrollably. What???!! I've always prided myself on my ability to control my emotions. Then it hit me..."Oh, I get it. This is the time my mom, brother, and father were all alive and well at home. My family was all there. " Just about the time you think you've dealt with the losses all these years, the feeling comes back. I guess there's more healing to be done.
Maybe that experience served the purpose.

Well, it doesn't have to make one sad to be transported. I think I'll take a break and listen to some new artists.
Make some new memories.

Songs of the Heart

(Be sure to read my post on Taos below if you read these in sequence.)
Since I have been telling you about the parks we've visited over the years, it brought to mind an experience I had at The Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite National Park a few years ago.
Reservations at the resort are made a year in advance at this popular resort. An evening dress code is observed here.

We were enjoying appetizers and champagne before ordering dinner in this grand hotel's huge dining room, with a giant vaulted ceiling, massive peeled-log trusses and 24-foot plate glass windows. A beautiful haunting melody was being played on the piano at the far end of the room. It went straight to my heart. I can't remember ever having that exact experience before. I asked our waiter to please ask the pianist the name of the song he just played. I had to know. It was Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings.

Upon further investigation, I learned that this is the song Eric wrote the lyrics to in memory of his son, Conor, who tragically fell out of a New York City apartment window in 1991. Conor was only four years old.

If you have a chance, download on iTunes or listen to it on You Tube - Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven. We all have our own way of dealing with pain, don't we.