The weather has started to get a bit warmer in the landlocked, dark world of Mongolia. And with the weather shift comes a strange little release. Like I curled up for winter, folding myself over and over like a piece of paper. Maybe I had hoped the layers of myself would keep my warm. But now I can spread myself out, run my fingers over the creases to half-assed iron them out...I can embrace the sunlight again.
Spring has always seemed a lazy season to me, quite the opposite of all the messages that nature sends. Indeed, I even notice greater energy levels in myself with the resurgence of the Sun. People around me begin to prepare for the great "Spring Cleansing", animals slowly emerge from hibernation to begin preparing for the next winter, and the plants begin the hard work of thriving and reproducing. I feel myself get caught up in all the bustle, but my mind retains its wintering lethargy. Like it's the last thing to awake and admit to the change of seasons. And so, rather than jump-start itself, my mind grabs ahold of anything that shares in its fogginess.
Now, if you knew me at all (which you probably do...at least better than I know myself), you would know that music haunts me, no matter where I might go. No doubt, then, music is the first thing my mind wheedles through, searching for noise that seems profound at that moment. Of course, music and its meaning are entirely illusory. When was the last time you felt the same way about a song as someone else? And no, I'm not talking about the Taylor Swift bullshit you listen to with friends. I'm not talking about "Somebody That I Used to Know" (unless, of course, you actually listened to it at home and it moved you in some way, while you bobbed your head, headphones pulsing). I don't mean the music that brings us together...no party jams, no Bieber. I mean the music that sets us apart. The music that can actually mean something to us...personally. An association of noise we have with ourselves and no one else.
Well, I like to pretend that I go through 'musical seasons'. Like emotional seasons, but something I can visit and re-visit somewhat consciously. I was surprised to discover that I have gone through many musical seasons already, while in Mongolia. I went through a season of snow and hail interrupted by a month of sun and warmth, to inane joy and chanting, to an interesting season of violence and pacifism, to confusion, loss and desperation, and finally arriving at something akin to waking into a daze. Like a hangover from too much sleep. There's just nothing quite like sharing yourself with something so entirely that it begins to take on a part of you. Where you begin to lose yourself in it and it becomes lost within you. Something like love, but more powerful. Where the loss of one means the actual dissolution of the other.
Then again, this could all simply be a product of the current season. Maybe when I push the sky away, a new clarity will reveal itself in the light of a new season.
