There's Proof in Song

"The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought."  

~ Sir Thomas Beecham  

Warning:  This blog entry is going to be kooky, corny and cheesy at times.  Read at your own risk. Feel free to roll your eyes.

Preface:

I carry with me, all day, every day, a physical sensation of something which I have come to believe is grief. It's a heaviness I feel in my head, neck and throat.  It's there all the time.  Sometimes it's worse than others, but it's never gone.  It's always there.  Nothing I do can chase it away.  Nothing except singing. (Yes, here's the corny part 1.  Go ahead and make fun. I deserve it, and I can take it!) To chase the demons away, I sing.  I sing a lot, especially when I am alone.  I sing anything and everything from old junior high chorus songs, to college choir songs, from show tunes to lullabies.  I don't put a lot of thought into what I sing.  I just open my mouth and something always manages to come out.  (Now brace yourself for the second corny part.) When I am signing, especially when I am singing alone, I often feel a sense of comfort outside of myself.  It's not necessarily my own voice that is making me feel better (if you've heard me sing, you can attest to the fact that it's unlikely to be my own voice that's bringing me comfort), but rather that there is something, someone, listening and emitting a spell of solace.  I like to think that maybe my grandmother listens to me sing.  Maybe it's her presence that I feel, comforting me, trying to heal my broken heart.  This is something that I have felt for years, but never told another person, not even Greg, mostly because I think it's ridiculously cheesy and schmaltzy.  Now I'm telling the whole world.  Go big or go home, right?

I sing many songs, but there are three in particular that always remind me of my grandmother, each for different reasons.  The first is Something in the Way She Moves, by James Taylor (you can click on the titles to hear the songs if you feel so inclined).  I realize this song is not about a mother figure at all, but the words still resonate with me, "I feel fine any time she's around me now... And if I'm well, you can tell she's been with me now.  She's been with me now, quite a long, long time, yes and I feel fine." When I was first born and in my early childhood, my grandmother was my stability.  When so many other things were unpredictable, her home remained a constant.  Her mood was consistent.  There was no guess work involved when it came to Gram.  I was confident in where I stood, and I knew that I stood at the top of the ladder. What is more comforting to a child than that?  Doesn't it only seem right that knowing that she is still with me would bring me comfort in adulthood as well?  "She's been with me now, quite a long, long time.  Yes and I feel fine."

The second song is Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.  Stevie wrote it when she was at a crossroads, trying to move on from being a small child to being an adult, in control of her own life, figuring out where her life was going.  She was at a friend's home in Colorado looking out at the mountains, which gave her the idea of a landslide.  I've heard different stories regarding who it was written for - her dad, Lindsey -  It really doesn't matter.  It's about her coming to her own, on her own.  "Well, I've been 'fraid of changing, 'cause I built my life around you."  Could there be lyrics more fitting to me than these?  A large portion of my life issues stem from an inability, or better yet, a refusal to let go of the grief I carry for my grandmother.  I almost feel like if I let go of my grief, I let go of her, and I just can't bring myself to do that.  I understand logically that letting go of the grief is what I need to do, what she would want me to do.  It would not, in fact, mean letting go of her at all, but the thought of such a monumental change is scary.  I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can make those necessary steps.  At the same time, holding on to this sadness allows the sadness to hold on to me.  I always feel like I am one small step away from a personal landslide.  Listening to Stevie makes me feel as if perhaps there is hope.  Maybe I will be able to get beyond myself someday.  "Time makes you bolder.  Children get older, and I'm getting older too..." Maybe if I can gather the courage to someday climb the mountain instead of just sitting bewildered at the bottom, I will find something happily different, yet tenderly familiar on the other side.

(The last song is "Wintersong," by Sarah McLachlan.  It doesn't have any role in this story, so I'm not including it in this entry.  You should still listen to it, however.  I just love her voice and this song.  So beautiful.)

Moving on now from the background to the main story...

Remember in my last blog entry when I said that I never talk out loud to the dead, because it makes me feel crazy?  Well, I talked yesterday.  And guess what?  I sure felt crazy!  I was alone in the house, doing my weekly cleaning.  I was planning to go on a ghost hunt at the U.S.Hotel with Greg and a friend on Saturday evening.  My friend told me that one of the men who conducts the hunts is a medium who actually channeled her father.  Of course, you all know my obsession with mediums, so it's only fitting that I spent the next few days thinking about whether or not my grandmother could possibly come through during the ghost hunt.  I decided to ask her to come, out loud, in case the dead can't in fact read minds.  The words fell like big clumsy rocks out of my mouth and onto the hard wood floors of my parlor, but I forced myself to say them anyway.  I said something like this, "Gram, I am going to see a medium tonight at the U.S. Hotel.  If he really can see and hear you, can you please tell him 'coffee beans' for me?  That can be our code phrase.  I know that the coffee bean conversation was between Carmen and me, not you and me, but I know you had to be there when we were talking.  You don't have to say anything else.  Just 'coffee beans,' and I'll know you're there, you're here." (Don't know the coffee bean story?  Click here to read it.) That was the end of it.  I went about my cleaning, and of course, my singing.

As I mopped the upstairs, I sang Something in the Way She Moves twice.  I've been working on doing Landslide with my neighbor, so it's also in my head.  I've been singing it a lot lately, thinking of my grandmother each time.   When I came downstairs, I decided to put on Pandora and listen to some music while I finished cleaning.  I selected the James Taylor station.  Carolina In My Mind was the first song.  The second?  Something in the Way She Moves.  I listened to it, smiled, and said (out loud, even) "Did you do that?"  The third song?  Yep, you guessed it - Landslide.   Hmmm...seems almost serendipitous, doesn't it?  I know, they are both very popular songs.  Logically speaking, it's highly improbable that my grandmother controlled the songs which were piped over Pandora on Saturday morning.  (I find just that sentence to be highly amusing!) But like I said before, logic isn't always all it's cracked up to be.  It's awfully coincidental that those two songs played back to  back just moments after I spoke those awkward words, begging her for proof of her continued existence.  Who is to say what powers the dead have or don't have?  Hey, if I can control Pandora when I die, I'm totally going to hone that skill!

Are you wondering about the U.S.Hotel?  Did we find any spirits lingering in the dark rooms of the dilapidated second and third floors?  Better yet, was the medium overtaken by my grandmother's repeated shouts of "coffee beans?"

It was a fun evening.  Learning some of the history of the hotel was especially interesting.  Since I have known it, it's been a higher-end restaurant, attracting a reasonably polished crowd, a place for doctor's daughters to have their wedding rehearsal dinners.  I didn't realize that the hotel initially provided lodging for vagabonds and wayward folk, and was practically a brothel back in the early 1800s.  It remained to be a rather shady place pretty much into the late 1900s when the current owners purchased it and fixed it up.  A lot of people died there, for a lot of different reasons, few of which were on the up and up.  That's not an image I have of any place in my quaint little home town.  It was certainly thought-provoking.  As for the ghost hunt itself, well, maybe that's a blog entry for another day. I'll tell you this - no one spoke to me from the other side.  I wasn't grabbed or pushed.  I didn't hear any small children playing, and I didn't notice any smells other than those typical for a 200 year old building.  There were two instances when I thought a spirit could have been present, but I could also very easily explain them away.  The rest of the time, sadly, I think Greg and I were the lone skeptics in the group.  We enjoyed interacting with the other members of the group, though (and no, that doesn't mean that we played pranks on them!  They were nice people, and we are too...most of the time!)  It was fun to see their enthusiasm.  On the way home, I said to Greg, "I want to believe, but I'm just not quite sold yet."  I envy their faith in the afterlife, truly.  It was an exciting and unconventional anniversary date for us, and completely worthwhile, simply for its own sake.  I'm glad we went.

As for the medium, he showed no indication of being overcome with my grandmother's voice.  He did not come to me saying he sensed a strong female presence around me, compelling him to say the words "coffee beans."  There was no solid proof from a medium for me last night.  Unlike the last time I saw a medium, I can honestly say that I was not disappointed this time.  First of all, the intent of this dinner was not to channel our loved ones.  My expectations were to contact people I didn't know, not people near and dear.  More importantly, however, is that I have (believe it or not) made some progress in my obsession with contacting my grandmother.  Do I want to talk to her?  Yes!  Absolutely! Desperately!  But I also realize that reality dictates that I will not have the answers I am looking for until I die myself.  Maybe she's still with me, maybe she isn't.  I can choose to believe either possibility, and depending on my mood I vacillate between the two options.  The fact of the matter is that it is of very little consequence either way.  Her presence after death - my constant rumination and analyzing of it - none of those things make a darn bit of difference in the grand scheme of things.  She's gone.  End of story.  As I always say, "it is what it is."  Life goes on, and it goes on with the inclusion of grief.  I read a book a while ago that talked about people's frustration when they can't resolve their grief.  The problem is that there is no resolution, only accommodation.   Grief doesn't ever go away, we just learn to live with it, making room for it in our lives.  It would be a dream come true to have an encounter in a grocery store with a bona fide medium (if they actually exist), but even that could never fill the void that was left by her passing.  Nothing from the outside is going to make it easier.  I have to find a way of mending my own heart as best I can. I'm working on it.

I don't talk to the dead.  I can't see that changing any time soon, or ever changing for that matter.  There are a lot of things in my life that I need to change, but speaking out loud to my grandmother isn't on that list.   I'll connect with her in my own ways.  I'll sing, as I always have, and maybe that's enough to start the healing.  Maybe someday I will realize that I don't need any more proof than that which is carried in song.