Date of Publication:
March 1, 2021
Last February I started taking ukulele lessons at a nearby music academy. With COVID, the lessons moved to online starting in July. My tone deafness and arthritic fingers did not help to make this a smooth experience however I persisted. I finally progressed to Beatles songs and recently started practicing Something. To my surprise it brought back a flood of memories of listening to the Abbey Road album for the first time in 1969. Suddenly what had been tedious daily practice became more interesting and gave me a sense of connectedness to the 15-year-old me so long ago.
This discovery has been a reminder for me that music can be so healing and mood altering. I have begun mining my life for those times of special happiness or contentment and connecting a song from the period. This has been lovely way to curate a song list that in this year of disorientation seems to bring me back to myself - all the pieces of myself lost along the way.