Easy Does It

I’m an old guy. Turned 79 a week ago. I don’t play music while I go through my morning regimen of stretches and leg lifts the rheumatologist gave me to combat brucites and arthritis. Maybe I should. I do ask Alexa to play ambient music at night in hope that I’ll more quickly receive a visit from my fickle friend Morpheus, but it doesn’t always work.

What music helps me center myself and bring me back to a place of Zen, as the contest requirements ask? Zen was lightly covered in a “Religion of the World” class I took as a group filler a bit more than half a century ago in my Sophomore year of college. I recall that Zen had something to do with Mahayana Buddhism and, if I remember correctly, took a lifetime of effort to attain. I found a more modern, much simplified, and nearly understandable explanation on the internet. To paraphrase: Zen is the process of tricking your mind so you can leave stress behind and focus on beautiful things that help you relax and feel good about yourself. That’s a definition I can work with.

What do I listen to in order to relieve stress and focus on beautiful things? To state the obvious, music appreciation evolves. Those of my age and ilk grew up with the ubiquity of car radios, a stereo for LPs, and a tiny turn table that spun 45 rpm vinyl with a side B. It was Rock and Roll, and a little Country and Western. I don’t know that either relieved stress or brought about beautiful thoughts, but it took my mind off bothersome stuff, like having wash the dishes and take out the garbage. My rural community in a Rocky Mountain state didn’t have much of a classical music presence, although my high school sweetheart took piano lessons and at least one young lady in our graduating class of 48 students played the violin. College didn’t expand my music appreciation. Not that the opportunity wasn’t available. I just didn’t pay attention.

After college I joined the Marine Corps to avoid the draft. Cultural shock, and an inkling of what I had missed, hit me like a violin to the face when, on a weekend break from training, I sat in the nosebleed section of the DAR Constitution Hall in D.C. and listened to Grand Canyon Suite. I nearly cried. A year later, in an old French pill box on Hai Van Pass above Da Nang harbor, a radioman with a minuscule, battery-operated turntable played Barbra Streisand singing “Happy Days are Here Again” in a manner that fit the situation. I had the same emotion. It hurt, but it felt good. Stress diminished. A little. For a while.

My savings, the GI Bill, and a working wife helped me through law school in San Francisco. New world. New stresses. Different music. Folk music had come and gone, although not entirely. Loved Janis. Can listen to “Bobby McGee” anytime. My wife persuaded me into attendance at the War Memorial Opera House. We were standing behind the rail at the rear of the Orchestra seating when I heard the Anvil Chorus and the Toreador song for the first time. Some of that remains in my psyche and I call on Alexa for those sounds on some late evenings.

Occasionally I find something new that sooths me. At least new to me. Listening to a medley of Kingston Trio tunes the other evening I heard a cover of “Barrett’s Privateers” and was prompted to search out the original by Stan Rogers. I listen to that sometimes to help brush aside any petty irritations I imagine I suffer. Recently I’ve been hooked on Celtic Woman. But mostly it’s the old and familiar that puts me at peace. Tunes from the late fifties and the sixties, but only the quiet music of those years. Soft Rock. Soft Jazz. Folk. The face that settles into my pillow wears a smile.