Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Battle Studies and the Radio Lottery

 On the flight from Newark to Liberia, in my anti-nausea/ sleep deprived state the urge to listen to John Mayer’s album Battle Studies struck me. This is especially peculiar and contentious, because I more or less loathe(d) John Mayer, much to my friend Charles chagrin. We had had many discussions where Charlie would extol on the virtues of Mr. Mayer, and I could never get past how in love with himself he was with his silly guitar solos (I mean, c’mon, he’s John Mayer, not Jimi Hendrix or even Jack White).  Nevertheless, for some reason beyond me, I listened to Battle Studies on repeat for an hour or so while I flew over volcanoes and realized I was not in Kansas (okay, Canada) anymore. 

            The story gets more strange when every night after I checked my bed for scorpions and before I fell asleep, I compulsively listened to Mayer’s “Heartbreak Warfare”. Admittedly, this year has held a fair share of heartbreak for me, but I’m quite sure it has for most of us. Sorrow is miserable feeling, but its also beautiful because its part of the human experience. What a glorious thing to be able to feel devastated, and to hold on to the hope of feeling the exhilarating high of the opposite extreme. And so it was that the unexpected John Mayer continued to serenade me to sleep every night in Costa Rica. 





The odds kept getting weird when the next day, my newfound soul friends all poured ourselves into a pile of cuddles on a swinging couch after a long day of teacher training and had acoustic guitar jam sessions. We were lucky enough to find a guitar and even more fortunate that some of us were talented enough to play it (thanks Jason, Greta and Mykayla!) One of our favourite songs to sing was another John Mayer song from Battle Studies, called “Who Says”. I promise you, I had not mentioned my growing preoccupation with this album to any of my friends, and I was not even the one who started to sing it. I just allowed myself to lay there in my friends arms, with my arms around my friends, and let the feeling of being totally enveloped in love be permanently associated with this song. The best part is that we made it our own, slowing the tempo down entirely, pausing where we needed to, adding lots of giggles, repeating parts whenever we felt we needed to. I recorded it on my phone, and I still listen to it whenever I feel sad, or happy, or miss my friends, or just want to smile. 

  A couple of days later, my friend Brittany from back home tagged me in a facebook post listing her favourite albums. Brittany is a music aficionado in the best sense. If I were to print you a transcript of our facebook conversations, at least 50% would be of her sending me links to fantastic music. I’m sure you can see where this is going, but of course she had Battle Studies on her list. During my time at yoga teacher training, Brittany was my personal antidote to homesickness. Anytime I felt unsure of myself, or like I was missing out on anything back home, I just had to check my inbox and there would be an update from her. This little hint that Battle Studies meant to her what it was growing to mean to me was just a small symbol at how much I appreciated her constant support buoying me up. 

             Are you still with me? Because this is where it starts to get real. Our last morning at teacher training arrived, and the people who I had spent every minute of every day with (seriously, we mostly even slept in the same room), who I had laughed with, cried with, who taught me, who changed me, who invested themselves in me, and who I gave pieces of myself to, those people that I love packed their things in a shuttle that would take them back to the airport and away from me. In the background, the radio played. 
             
             I am pretty certain it was a satellite radio, but even still, there are so many variables with radio. There is the timing of radio hosts talking, of commercials, there are an infinite number of artists, and exponentially compacting that is the number songs in the catalogue of any particular artist. Sometimes when you listen to the radio, you hear that Katy Perry song for the four millionth time and want to steer your car into oncoming traffic. That makes it even more special when there is a song that you are craving, that would entirely make your day, that makes you feel like you really ARE the lead in your own movie, and yes, this is the soundtrack to your life. 

             On the radio that day, at precisely the moment I looked at my friend Taylor’s eyes spill over, and as she told me my eyes were pretty when I cried,  “Heartbreak Warfare” came on the radio.  I broke open. It was like listening to this song before I even knew these people, and every night as I fell asleep was priming me for this moment, of one of the hardest parts of my life, of having to say goodbye to people that I love. 

             I have no idea what I believe about the divinity, about the universe, about probability. But I do believe that this moment was magic. At teacher training, one of our favourite things to do was chant. We would sing seemingly random sounds, finish our practices with long and resounding “om”s . We didn’t know what we were saying, and while this can be a dangerous thing (words are powerful things), our focus was more about the vibration of the sounds that we were making, and how that made us feel, and what that meant to us. We made our own meaning with chanting together, and with singing together nightly. I made my own meaning to Battle Studies with the events I associate with those particular vibrations. 

             Think about going to a live concert. The vibrations of the music are literally tangible as they course through your body. The same vibrations cause physiological responses in hundreds or thousands of strangers, causing you to instantly be a part of one larger community. 
             Music, sound waves, shared vibration have the power to heal, unify and connect—how is that for magic?