Classic rock, recharged brain
Sometimes you just have to rock out to shake up your thinking.
Sing at the top of your lungs, knowing nobody can hear you (including yourself). Dance in your seat in ways that would embarrass your kids. Let the pleasure of familiar songs take you away as you get lost in the whirl of a crowd all doing the same thing.
It’s mid-August and the morning air signals fall approaches as I breathe in. The leaves on the trees are showing the slightest tinge with gold. The tomatoes in the vegetable garden are busting out and the green peppers are turning orange as they ready themselves for picking and the delicious gazpacho I hope to make.
Browsing the morning newspaper I come across a concert happening that evening. We are lucky to find two available tickets. The day immediately takes on the excitement and anticipation of music from another time in our lives. The music has already begun…in my mind.
Under a beautiful sky and a cool 67º evening, Terry and I make our way to the Canandaigua’s outdoor performing arts center for an evening of Hall and Oates, one of our favorite bands from the 70s and 80s.
The sun has set, and the band is ready; the music begins. We know almost every song. The songs that accompanied us along the path of our life together: college, dating, children, anniversaries, now. The times when we danced more. We sing, dance in our seats and just smile at every familiar tune and each other. That knowing smile that more than forty years of being together suggests.
The energy from the crowd lifts the band and the band lifts the crowd. The experience sweeps us away. No other thoughts intrude, just the music. Music and the brain.
“Time is talking to me. You want to know what it says?” Daryl Hall teases the audience. He doesn’t answer the question. He plays the piano and finishes one of our favorites, Sarah Smile.
Then just as easily as we slipped into the evening, it is over, as we make our way under the almost full moon to our car and the ride home. Quiet. A beautiful memory that lingers. And I realize that my mind has had a mini-vacation from itself, its thought cycles loosened up, released, unlocked, free to create and imagine. Free to remember. I am happy, re-energized, at peace.
Time is always talking to us. Are you listening?
Sherri McArdle is a wife and mother to adult children and has been a business leader/owner for over 25 years. She is also a Master Certified Coach (MCC) to leaders and executives across the country and a trained mediator.
