The waking

What has music done for me? What can it do for you? At this point in the post, I assume I have no answer for the second question. What do I know about anything anyway?

As for the first question, a poem comes to mind, a pretty famous one that you might have read before, it's "The road not taken", by Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Music made me take the less traveled road, a road that is both the means and the end as, even though my goal is clear (and not a secret, I just want to make a living with my music, no more no less), the journey itself is the life that I live, and the life that I live is full of music, full of people who care both for me and for music. And yes, full of uncertainty too, but, that is the same in the most traveled road, thinking otherwise is just an illusion. Life is uncertainty, you just put in in your backpack, along with the hope, the fear, the water and the snacks, and carry it around with you.

Taking music seriously opened my mind in many ways, it connected me to inspiring people with whom I learn stuff constantly, for instance, that anything you need to do, you can learn to do (this day and age the information is out there, you just have to look for it), or that Nietzsche once said: "without music life would be a mistake", or that music can be a way of life even if you're not a musician, such is its power to reach into people's souls and change them for the better.

I'm getting a little too mystical, maybe... but with all this momentum, I can't help but think of another poem, a tougher cookie, this one, but I'm sure everyone can get something out of it, "The Waking", by Theordore Roethke.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

Music woke me up to a life of wonder, not only in music itself but in everything. I still can't answer the second question. What has music done for you? Feel free to leave a comment and tell me.