What is it about music that makes everything so much more moving and beautiful? Think about your typical day, and then think about it with a soundtrack. Way better, right? Suddenly, the mundane things become purposeful. Meaningful, even.
I feel like the past week has been filled with moments made more beautiful. Something has been knocked loose inside, and it's been addicting. I don't want it to go away. It started innocently enough, with a low-key Friday night at home watching Beginners (don't believe them - it's not a comedy, although there are amusing parts), which is a lovely enough movie that makes you feel all squishy inside but didn't change my world outright. It's the aftermath that got to me - more on that in a minute. Saturday, a friend showed me some YouTube videos of people in wingsuits BASE jumping, set to either beautiful or high-energy music. Here's an example, the famous (and freakin' crazy) Jeb Corliss.
Without music, it's just someone flying through the air, and the only sounds would be the wind, the flapping of the wingsuit material, and the whoosh as he flies by. Granted, soaring through the mountains like a bird must be incredibly exhilarating, but how much more exciting is it with music?!
Then, Monday night, I had a dream. It was one of those dreams that you wake from, relieved that it was just a dream because the emotions you felt in the dream were so real and so awful, but it sticks with you all the same. I dreamed that I was dying of cancer (thanks to Beginners for planting that seed), sitting in a room, like in an aquarium exhibit, that was dark so that the plants and animals in the floor-to-ceiling fish tank were fully visible, without any glare. Except there were no plants or animals in the tank, and the sadness, loneliness, and hopelessness of the situation was amplified by the green glow of the water, where algae had started to grow from lack of use. (Guess who's afraid of dying alone?) I had never felt anything like what I felt in that dream, and it was so sad, yet somehow so beautiful. I told a different friend about the dream, and he sent me this:
Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.
That aquarium is incredibly beautiful, awe-inspiring and moving on its own, but the music put me over the edge and the dream came rushing back. The beauty in life itself, both heart-wrenching and inspiring at the same time, is made so much better with music. I spent today doing data entry, the most boring work there could possibly be, with a soundtrack by Mogwai, Bonobo, and Damien Jurado, to keep that feeling around a little longer. The BASE jumping and the music and the dream melted something within me, and I don't want it to freeze back up.
