It All Adds Up

If writing saved my life half the times it was up for grabs, music saved my life the other half. There are times I remember it felt like the only thing that could save me as the adults in my young life fought so loud there wasn't a number high enough on my Walkman to drown out the sounds that came before the cops did.

There were nights spent in the dark, buried beneath the covers, listening to the radio or a tape so well worn it was bound to break from all the love.

There were days I came home from school to an empty living room and I would fill it loud with the sounds of whatever was my current favorite.

When I was in college, sometimes I would spend hours at a time in the practice rooms of the music building playing the piano, pounding out whatever pains were poking at my heart.

Music has reminded me time after time that I am not alone in whatever sadness or whatever joy life has thrown at me. It has given me the courage to keep traveling until dawn.

Last week, after one particularly challenging morning at work, I was sitting in my office when I heard a familiar voice singing a song I had never heard. I immediately cranked up the volume of the overhead speaker and confirmed that it was Josh Ritter whose voice had found me. I didn't even know we had gotten his new album The Beast in its Tracks for in-store play, but my music manager knew that it was exactly what I needed to get me through the rest of the day.

The Beast in its Tracks is an album about many things. As Josh says, "It is an album that began in heart-break, but (for me!) it has come to stand for everything that happened after. I'm here, I'm alive, I love what I do."

One thing I've been reminded of time and time again, through books, through songs, through the best people in my life, is that we are not alone. We are all connected through our struggles and our triumphs. I have also been reminded that sometimes it's the seemingly insignificant gestures of kindness that can mean the most.

There's pain in whatever we stumble upon. If I never had met you, you couldn't have gone. But then I couldn't have met you. We couldn't have been. I guess it all adds up to joy in the end.

from Joy To You Baby by Josh Ritter

From an adventure that is a story in and of itself.