Life-Check by Bach

Wrote this tonight as a microperspective (papers we have to regularly write) for my Humanities class, in response to Bach's Concerto No. 1 in D Minor. Wasn't expecting all of this to come out as it did... but it came, so here it is. :)

Life-Check by Bach

Listening to Bach’s Concerto no. 1 in D Minor took me immediately down memory lane. I closed my eyes and I was instantly in my Grandma DeeDee’s upstairs loft – breathing in cedar, dust and feeling the thick carpet between my small toes. There are blue glass bottles in a haphazard row on the windowsill, letting in pools of filtered light. My grandma is in and out of the house, and I am listening to the local classical radio station – music wafting up from the kitchen. I like the music, but it is making my 8-year-old-self antsy. For some reason I am restless and frustrated that time seems to slow down when music like this Concerto is played. I don’t like to let the pace drop; I want things to keep going – always going, going, going. There is something itching within me to move, to make things happen.

Fast forward to the present. I am closing my eyes and for the first time in years am listening to this Concerto again – in a humanities class at the college I attend. I am frazzled and worn down to the thinnest of threads – I have been barely getting enough sleep to be considered healthy, and am feeling the weight of the 17 credits that I thought I could shoulder on my own. I am worried about family at home, roommates, having enough time to finish everything I need to, a church calling, preparing for a mission, having enough time to actually eat and exercise, and somehow fitting in scriptures and regular communication with Heavenly Father. This pace I’ve been running for years now is slowed to a standstill while one of my professors doesn’t ask me to go, go, go anymore but rather to simply stop and listen. To listen to the music, to feel. I stop, I listen – and I definitely feel; I remember. I remember a time when all I wanted to do was to keep things going – to keep my mind and my heart racing from pushing myself to do more. Now I realize that the pace has picked up considerably – and that life isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. I am remembering and I am realizing everything as I listen to this Concerto.

Life isn’t going to slow down – it’s only going to get faster. Sometimes I wonder if I’m fast enough to keep running in the race, or if my body will just buckle from all the expectations and responsibility. But when I stop and listen – stop to appreciate – something like this Concerto again, I’m beginning again. I’m reminded of how to feel life on a deeper level and how to slow down to appreciate things that are so often overlooked or underappreciated because they encourage us to think for a moment, when the world claims we don’t have a moment to spare.

So thank you, Bach, for a quick life-check – and reminding me that I need to slow down in order to keep up with the pace.