I believe in the power that music holds over our emotions. Music can promote fear, love, social action, sadness, confidence, and even hatred. Music has touched me in almost all of these ways, but I find more often that I turn to music for comfort.
This last month I was sitting with my mom in our study. She was reading a new issue of Gourmet magazine and I was across from her listening to the Dixie Chicks. When the song “Easy Silence” began to play, love and appreciation washed over my heart, a more powerful feeling that any poem could have mustered. The soft chords and powerful lyrics in this simple song were profound enough to make me remember all of the easy silences my mom had created.
I would be omitting an important fact, if I didn’t say that this moment with my mom happened just a few weeks before I left for college. The fact that I was facing such an important stage in my life amplified the effect that the music had on my thoughts and feelings. What would I do without my mom there to comfort me with the easy and relaxing times we had once had. From this point on, the song that I had once listened to for the fun of it became the song that I can go to for comfort at any moment, and assure me that my life still retains some of its sanity, and that I am still able to be comforted simply by the quiet presence of another. Songs I have listened to in the past have evoked similar responses such as tears and mood swings, but it was there sitting across from my mom looking directly at her that, for the first time, I made a connection between a song and my heart strong enough to withstand the test of time.
Maybe this experience is not new to the outside world, or significant to the global community, but it was an experience that affected my life profoundly. It has given me a place to go to for comfort at any time, day or night, and it has renewed my confidence in the power of music of the human soul. Music has a powerful grip on my heart, and different music has evoked different emotions at varying times in my life, and hopefully, will continue to do so. This I believe.