MUSIC

Is there anything better than getting a new CD of a favorite artist and having time to just sit and listen and absorb? Ah! Music. From the simplest melody to the most magnificent symphony...there is something that appeals to every one. Is there a song that takes you away every time you hear it? Music is a springboard to all sorts of memories. My younger sister and I used to spend summers with relatives in NC and some of that was with a cousin about our age. As young girls do...we acted out all sorts of life experiences. One of our favorites was our future weddings. Just so happened that a popular song at that time was "Chapel of Love" . Remember,'going to the chapel and we're going to get married, going to the chapel of love...there she comes in her wedding gown looking like a queen...he has been her only love since she was 16...' We took turns,Joy, Debbie and I, being the bride. We dressed in the finest lace tablecloths,and old tattered petticoats. Do you remember the ones that had a tube to blow up around the hem to make them stand out even more? Our bouquets were of the most exotic of wild grasses and the occasional addition of a dandelion in perfect bloom. No brides have ever looked so beautiful or have been so envied. It was just not as grand to be the groom or the flower girl. The bride was the coveted part. Since I was the oldest...I got to decide whose turn was next. I saw nothing wrong with the eldest having a turn between each of the others, do you? They had much to learn and I was trying my best to educate them. Oh the memories.

I have entered into this trip down memory lane because I just bought a CD from my favorite female artist, Carly Simon. I know she's old school, but the emotion in her voice and the life in her songs find a haven in my soul. I read in a magazine that she had a new CD out and I rushed to get it. Felt pretty old when the pierced and tatooed girl at the record store said, "Who? I never heard of her." She looked it up on her computer and sure enough, they had just come in. With my copy in my hand, I felt it my duty to share with her the virtues of being able to actually understand all the words in a song. I'm not sure she got it. And I was too anxious to hear what Carly had been up to to continue my teaching. Out to the car...not even stopping to peruse the goods in Parisian. I'm mad at them anyway for selling out to Belk's. BELK"S? O sadness! But that is a post for another day. After speaking quite unkindly to those*****who think it is necessary to wrap CD's in such wrappings as to cause the finest Christian lady to have unkind thoughts, and struggling to get the outside paper off...only to discover the next strip of supertape along the top...I finally get to the prize. Into the player and out comes that familiar voice that touches my soul. This album is titled INTO WHITE, and it is almost an adult lullaby. Beautiful songs, mellow and touching, quiet and peaceful....music to listen to and let your mind find its way to the place she's singing from. She's even accompanied on one song by Ben and Sally Taylor, her children with James Taylor. Good genes on both sides, huh? She sings some old favorites and some new ones. I have all her albums. My favorite is HAVE YOU SEEN ME LATELY? But any of them could fill some part of me. She sings of life experiences we all have and as we have aged and as she has aged her music reflects the new trials we face.

Music..aren't you glad God though of music as a way to touch our very souls?