One Man
The thing I most enjoy about the re-exploration of my classical music collection is the time it takes to listen to one work, and the attention that needs paying to do so. If I look away for even an instant, the music becomes elevator music and when I look back I have no idea how the music got to where it is or why the composer wanted me there. I’ve picked up the stylus and gone back more times than I can count this week.
Slowing down and paying attention is my mantra these days. I’ve spent better than 50 years in the American workforce driving to work, driving myself, pushing for promotions, grasping for money. Rushing about. Of course, maybe that’s just life. No hunting, no gathering; no eating, no living. All that seems reasonable. I did a fair job of it. Raised a family. Tended a sick and dying wife. Have a nice place to live. Now I’m tending to me. And me wants a garden and good music. Slow things, things that move softly through the seasons and through the air.
Of course, I have the dread disease of empathy so I see the sick and the homeless along with the dead and the dying, and I wonder if my life isn’t the exception rather than the rule. And how can I talk about the way things should be for me and what I want when I know things cost money and many people simply don’t have it. It seems thoughtless. But I can't save everyone, or even anyone. I can just be someone who cares, a single molecule, in the larger cause, and then hope that it’s enough.