Saturday, October 2, 2010

Music

A year ago I wrote about my loss of interest in music in a post called Chrysalis.  I think this is proving to be an interesting choice of words.  If you think of a chrysalis as a time when everything shuts down before the new creature emerges, then I definitely think the first year on Empowerplus was like that.  But, if you look at the chrysalis stage as the intermediary between the earth-bound caterpillar and the high flying butterfly, then this is not my experience, because more and more it seems like I am going back to a more youthful state.

My taste in music is one example of this.  For most of my illness I have hardly listened to music at all.  It was irritating.  But, over the past couple of months I have been rediscovering all my old favourites.  I finally got my new stereo set up (it had been in the box for 9 months), and I've been listening to CDs I probably haven't played in 10 years.  And I'm enjoying finding a lot of my old vinyl on iTunes.  What's really interesting is that I'm feeling the feelings I used to have when I listened to those songs.  The chills up my spine and appreciation of raw talent are all back.  Also back is my complete intolerance of bad music.  It seems my sensitivity has returned.

I was a reasonably good classical pianist when I was young, but I have only played a handful of times in the past 20 years.  We still have the piano, but it has been out of tune so long I am not sure if it can be saved.  I am not really inspired to play yet, but who knows where this may lead?