Permission Granted

The weather was a steady curtain of mist and drizzle interspersed with flashes of  sunlight. And rainbows. Rainbows, plural, yes. I had hitched a ride with Monte to the beach, and while he surfed, I walked home. The tide was low, and I walked a long way on the beach, then across the road and up the canyon to my house.  Evanescent rainbows shimmered briefly in the distance, grew faint, and disappeared. Others lasted longer, and I went under their arches, or through them like a spirit. It was so magical, I even suspended my secret ban on music, scrolling to a playlist on my iPod and allowing myself to hear it.

A bit of explanation is in order. One way I have been mourning, you see, is by denying myself the pleasure of music. I know it sounds nuts, but it goes back to one of the last things my mother ever said to me: "I miss music."

She was so  pitiable at this point, and so deaf, and her hearing aid was stashed someplace other than in her ear, and who knows what she was hearing inside her own head? She was very uncomfortable, and could hardly speak, and there was no distraction for her from the bleak world in which she was helplessly imprisoned.  She  was always fond of music. I suppose she was yearning  for the solace of it now, for the way she and her mind could become it. "I miss music," she said.

I chose a few songs just for her and loaded them on my phone, put giant earphones on her head, and turned the volume up high. She leaned back and sighed, and I knew even then that I would never forget that moment. It was a hastily patched solution and went on for just a couple of minutes, but I resolved to bring her a whole concert next time I visited, and then of course she died before I could do that, and so all this time I have been carrying around a painful, guilty feeling, the conviction that if she couldn't experience this simple pleasure, neither should I.  

If by chance a snippet of music found its way to me, its effect was to thrust me back to those days of suffering anyway, and all I felt was sad. So I limited my listening to audiobooks and podcasts. It has been a muted year.But walking through the rainbows and the sparkly diamond air revived me, I guess. My walk became a dance and my breathing a kind of song, and a soundtrack seemed in order. It was senseless to be punishing myself this way. Why not break the cycle of misery instead of extending it?

Besides, my mother loved me. She'd probably want me to enjoy music! I tapped a random playlist on my iPod..."all songs"... and let the tunes come. Some were more suitable than others, but whenever a song began to tug at thoughts I didn't care to look at or make me feel a way I didn't want to feel, I just skipped forward to another. Classical was best, or wordless jazz...lyrics are often loaded...except for Bob Dylan, who somehow sounded okay...and beware of minor keys.

But I'll figure it out, as opposed to shutting it out. I am granting myself the gift.