A little spark that started a brushfire in my thoughts regarding music and life

If you read the previous post, you already know my new found love with Facebook. So while I was checking what a friend was up to, he had been tagged to write a list of 25 records/CDs that were most influential in his life. I thought that might be an interesting thing to do as well, even though I was not even tagged. So I started compiling my list and of course was completely unable to narrow it down to just 25. As a piece of useful information I might add that it is very difficult for me to put things into a list, to pick favorites to make a rating of one over the other. The problem is, that everything has a different meaning depending on the context. A friend suggested to take out classical music and maybe make 2 lists, but then there are all these cross over genres so to say the least, I was overwhelmed with the task of deciding. Even though I knew I could take some CDs out of the stack, there where also some that were somewhere else in the house and then there were 5 years of iTunes downloads and hundreds of LPs in boxes. So I never did my list, but kept thinking and analyzing.

Then a friend returned Arvo Pärt's 'Kanon Pokajanen' CD to me, a very important piece that would definitely end up in the list and I started thinking about it while listening to it for hours on end. So I decided to write about it, because it represents lent for me and it is lent. Just writing about and analyzing that genial music alone is a huge undertaking. Following those thoughts though came the question why lent is important to me, if I am really an agnostic of some sort. So now I am thinking about my spirituality and my faith, if that is the right word for it. There we have it, I wanted to write a blog entry about a piece and then it became more and more and is turning into this whole essay. Isn't it amazing what one thought about music can do to your brain. I think I need a catchy psa video: "your brain on music". So hopefully within the next days I can start posting this kind of essay piece by piece, day by day, like a series. Anybody got a good title for the series for me?

Why I love Facebook and you should too...

Obviously my blog has been shamelessly neglected. Even though I do find a lot of time just sitting here and waiting to get better, it is relatively hard to have coherent thoughts on valium. But that is not the whole story. I have been cheating on my blog and have spent my time on Facebook. I don't even recall why I did sign up, I just did and in no time got a good roster of friends. Being kind of glued to my back chair, I have spent hours on Facebook and have also pondered the question that is looming inquiring about it's popularity.

There are several reasons why I like Facebook so much. The most obvious is that it is social networking. I used to think that social networking websites are a very sad occurrence of modern life, leaving us even more isolated and contributing to the artificial and superficial components of our life. I have learned quickly that it is not so. I have been way more in touch with people that live around the corner than previously. But I have also reconnected with people in Pennsylvania, California and Germany. Of course I could have just send them a letter or an email, but after years, that is something that is just being put off. It is also very tedious to write many letters about all the same. And when I run into another mom at pick-up time at school, I am not going to tell her something like: "Hey my friend said this to me and then I bought a cookbook and did not want to get up this morning and my throat hurts and did you know I beat somebody at scrabble and then with a glass of wine watched American Idol."

Facebook allows me to participate in the little things of other people's life and vice versa. I do not only directly connect to people, I see their interactions with others and therefore get a much broader view of the web aspect than under conventional circumstances. When I signed up for twitter a few weeks ago and linked it to my blog, I had meant it as an experiment. I was and I still am uncertain of my opinion. Somebody wrote a great essay about it and that it seems so silly that people share these completely inane and uninteresting daily life facts. Even thought fascinated, I did agree with that at first and then it occurred to me within the last days,that this is where the strength is. It is not the extravagant and out of the ordinary things, it is the everyday life of all of us.

When we used to live more communal, with extended family around us and in close contact with our neighbors, everybody kind of knew what everybody was up to and that got completely lost with our modern life styles. This sense of community is brought back by facebook, I get the little details of friends and their friends and I can comment and they can comment. Where twitter is a one-dimensional one task network, Facebook allows about everything. I can play scrabble with my sister in law, or all sort of other games with other friends or play solo, trying to beat their scores. I can send messages, I can see other peoples messages, there are notes and links and tags and photos and videos and fan groups - so just about everything one could think of. It just wraps everything in one and makes it easy for people to be inside the network.

So yes, I am addicted, because I am shown that we all have an interest in each other and that we all care. In this sense Facebook does not isolate us more by only virtually pretending to be linked in, it actually does it. This puts communication on a different level that any other communication outside of really sitting at the kitchen table together, which is not possible with the way we live scattered all over the world.

The only issue I have is with the people that are not on Facebook. They are missing out, they will not know that I bought a Tapas cookbook and that I just beat Sophie at Carcarssonne.

It's very dark in the tunnel!

I have never liked tunnels. I am a person who likes to be in control, I need to know where I am and where I am going, so natural tunnels are not a spot of joy. The whole idea of having tons of water or mountain above you is quite disconcerting to me. I am sure that a lot of people feel this way about tunnels, why else would we have the lovely metaphor of the light at the end of the tunnel. I might be wrong, but I think originally it was really a symbol for our life on earth and the light being heaven. As an agnostic not my an interpretation that fits for me.

I feel like I am in a very deep and long tunnel, maybe a tunnel maze, so who knows if there is a way out. Each time I see a light, it disappears and things seem even darker. When talking to friends, a lot of us feel the same: everywhere we look and listen to, things are bad and keep getting worse. Life like we knew will not be here again. The laundry list of things going wrong in this world is so long, one could write a trilogy and not finish. The economic crisis is weighing on everybody, trying to get by financially, schools loosing funding to the point of absurdity, healthcare being ridiculous, violence and starvation in so many parts of the world, climate going to hell, food being incredibly expensive while lacking nutrients, a general disconnect in many aspects of life... I could go on and on and bore you to death.

My ten year old has anxiety and is stressed, my younger one with AS feels frustrated because she desires nothing more than making friends , my husband feels the burden of having to provide for us in these times and must fear the fate of many around us ( layoffs). My professional life is so tiny, my life as a caretaker gets no validation... you get the drift, we all feel the tunnel and cannot see the life. I am no stranger to anxiety and depression and my best remedy has always been hope, optimism, planning and: music. Now my back problems are so huge, that I had to make the decision not to sing the coming concert with my chorus, this has been a very difficult decision and it has taken away the little light I was seeing, the little Felix (luck) Mendelssohn light somewhere ahead. Of course this is the right decision, my husband has been my compass in this and just laid out the facts. It still feels awful though. At the same time I have to wonder why I am sitting here with my 43 years of life experience and a very big heap of difficulties that I mastered and I cannot stop crying just because I cannot sing in a concert. Maybe there is actually a light and I just cannot see it because my eyes are so wet?

I am not proof reading, editing and constructing this entry, I am just writing it as it is coming out of my finger tips , it is a new experience for me as I am trying to be less of a perfectionist, isn't a stream of consciousness closer to the idea of a blog anyway?

I feel really silly sitting here and crying, when there are a million worse things in the world. It is so selfcentered, something I despise, so then I have to despise myself and cry even more and this is getting so absurd and I actually had to laugh out loud now.

Thanks for listening (in a reading sort of way)

Bowling, the three sentence limit and no kumquats!

For a while there I was doing pretty good with posting on this blog, even though I have to admit that the whole compass thing is not really enough of a focus.

I have learned a few things in the past days. For one thing it is very funny to have a phone conversation while having the hick-ups. Also, two Valium work better than one. Whenever children see therapists, they turn into very mature, reasonable and responsible little citizens making their mother looks like idiots. This country is obsessed with superficial values. Health insurances make medical decisions. If you feel rotten and are in pain, a lot of people offer their help and that feels really great. I wish I had magical powers.

Okay these were all random insights into my the momentary lapse of normalcy in my life. I am banned to the red chair, a zero gravity recliner, that used to be my best friend and now I loathe it as it's use means I feel lousy. So here is the story: My little one has Asperger Syndrome and even though she is amazing and wonderful and extremely bright, she lacks in the friendship department. She has 2 friends and I need to make sure to foster interaction. So when we invite a friend, I try really hard to make it very special and fun. It really is a bit like bribery. So I went bowling with her and her friend and as my mom says, that was STUPID! Apparently it should have been clear to me, that 3 herniated disks and bowling do not mix.


The result has been a heavily medicated, miserable me, sitting in my red chair for almost 2 weeks now. At one point I was in so much pain after a chiropractors visit, that driving the van into the next tree seemed like a pretty good idea, but I got myself home with LaMaze breathing (at least the class was good for something). So when you have nothing to do outside of trying to stay in control as CEO of family by being stationary secretary, it seems like a good idea in theory. Silly me, I thought I could blog away, write a bit on my novel, learn Adobe Dreamweaver, watch wonderful chick flicks, read a couple of books, play carcarsonne with S, mend a mountain of hurt clothing etc... you get the drift. And then I find that the cocktail of meds I am taking, kind of turns my brain to a mushy cloud. And a mushy cloud gives me a three sentence limit, which works wonders on Facebook, but not on Blogger.

I had planned to write this entry with three sentences to prove my point and for some reason made a rather long entry. I am contracting myself, this is confusing. I really wanted to post something about Kumquats anyway, but the computer kept crashing when I wanted to edit the photo for that post. Sometimes I don't get myself, is there somebody out there whi gets me?

Just blame it on the Valium :)