Here's to Music.

    We've all felt it. 

That moment when you're driving in your car and the music is up all the way... the beat of the bass so strong it feels as if its your own heartbeat. In that moment when the sound fills the air around you, it seems to seep into your pores and absorb into your very soul. That rush is one of my favorite feelings in the entire world. In that short moment, its as if time is suspended and all of my bottled up emotions are set free... and as I'm filled to the brim with an emotion I can't really describe, I feel as if I'm on top of the world. As if anything is possible.
     Music, I am hopelessly addicted to you. My entire day today revolved around you, and if I think about it, most of my life has too. Since the time I could climb onto a piano bench, I've been absolutely fascinated by you, by that feeling you give me. When my self taught prodigy of an uncle would move his fingers over the black and white keys in a cataclysm of sounds, I would sit next to him with hands that could not even write yet and wish so badly that I could set my soul free through music like he could. When my grandma gave us an old upright that my parents put downstairs,  I approached it with determination. Little did I know that some of my uncle's talent had been passed down to me, and I remember sitting for hours and teaching myself how to read music and how to play. I was 5 years old, stubborn, and wanted more than anything to be like Mozart. Well, I definitely didn't develop anywhere near his talent, but I was able to play his music shortly after. For some reason I've always been able to hear something and then just play it. Just feel it and do it, just like that. When I got lessons then came Beethoven, Debussy, Aerosmith even as well, and soon my teacher told me I was playing at a college level in 8th grade. 

    And that was all great to hear, but my favorite was just sitting down at the piano, all alone, and writing. I had an old cassette tape recorder that I would record all of my songs on.. it to this day has hours and hours of child Lauren simply playing whatever chords and melodies felt good at the time. Piano was my first love, and the only thing in life that's ever come natural to me. No matter what had happened at school that day, no matter if girls were mean to me or I didn't get the grade I wanted, no matter if I didn't get the part I wanted at dance... piano was my escape and I always felt happy there. It was the one place I could go and know that I was understood here, good enough here, safe here. It has always been the one place my thoughts would disappear and where I didn't have to try.
   I loved playing in the dark and my mom would always find me downstairs, tell me I was going to get horrible vision and turn the lights on. I always played it off like I was just too lazy to walk over and turn on the switch, but in all honesty, there was something magical about trusting my fingertips to recognize the keys for me, something about hearing and feeling the music without the sense of sight. Sometimes I'd even play entire tarantellas with my eyes completely closed. I'd get lost in that for hours. 
    I began to crave that  feeling of absolute freedom and began dancing. The studio became my second favorite place in the world... it'd always have the music up loud and there I got to defy gravity and push myself to the point of exhaustion and in those moments I'd feel that same rush. We'd all feel it. It was there as we waited backstage with the lights down, nervousness buzzing in the air. It connected us together when we danced.. it was a kind of magical feeling that would come about as we were moving together, spinning and leaping and expressing in sync, a kind of peaceful hush that would come over everything... and then disappear as quickly as it came about when the song ended. It was bliss.
     Today I got the chance to feel that rush again, on the same piano that I first sat down at. And I know that this entire post is a bit of a rant, but it felt so good, so natural to have everything pouring out as that indescribable feeling coursed through my veins again that I simply had to write about it and remember that moment, because I feel as if college has started it has been so rare for me to get to go back to that place. It's the one place where I feel more like myself than anywhere else, and I've missed it terribly. I ache for it everyday I'm without it. 
   So for everyone reading this, I encourage you to take some time to indulge yourself in that one thing that makes you feel invincible. Whatever it is that has that power to soothe your mind, take you home regardless of where you are, and inspire you simultaneously, never give it up, no matter what it is. Hold on to that rush - it's one of the things that makes life worth living for. You were given that love, that talent for a reason.

Music, I owe you a big thank you. 

Yours truly,

Lauren