But the important thing is

It was a big deal for me when I renamed this blog. Years ago, I started the blog under the title "Music is Change." I couldn't have known then how much my life would change in one year, but I know that I was bogged down with anticipatory grief. Back then, I tried so hard to find the beauty in change. As a middle school teacher, now I know how wild and unavoidable change is. I don't dread it as much and I know that change can bring wonder, and wonder can bring change.

I chose the title "Life is a Narrow Road" because of a song that helped me a lot in my grad school days: Kol Ha'olam Kulo.  The song with its translation is available here: http://youtu.be/1WnEAxa1tFc

The song paraphrases a metaphor from Reb Nachman: All the World is a narrow bridge but the important thing is not to fear. 



I spent so much of my childhood in fear. Fear of success, fear of failure. Fear of friendship and fear of aloneness. Fear of doctors and fear of health (do I deserve it when my little sister is so ill?). Fear of being too loud, fear of being too soft.  Fear of apologizing too much, and fear of not apologizing enough.

No matter how much love I was given, I still needed reassurance. I was like Teflon: nothing sticks! 

Yet, I wanted everything to stick. I wanted to remember everything, to hold on to everything, to savor everyone and cherish every moment. I have diary after diary recording the smallest minutae of my existence along with the feelings and hopes and doubts I experienced. My sister, Jess, once begged me to put down my diary and live life!

Well, I'm grateful for all of that. I remember a lot and I have diaries and songbooks and stories of people I will never see again.

But something happened around the time I turned 38. I stopped fearing. I started living without the apology. And I began composing happy songs.

This weekend, I accompanied rehearsals again at the Unitarian Church in Kingwood.  The building was so alive with laughter and music. The camaraderie was here and now and alive in a building that is older than the United States. The songs we sang-- Schubert, Faure, Vivaldi--- are from three different centuries, and yet here we are singing them. My fingers danced on the piano with clumsy joy. Music is change and it is a constant. 

Love is change, and it is a constant too. Right now my biggest fears are losing the people I love most. These fears keep me clinging on and reaching out and savoring relationships. Death saddens me, because I am human.



But I also stood by the snow-covered cemetery in Kingwood and felt a piece/peace of forever (to reuse a pun from earlier today.) Some people live on in works of art, some in stone. Some live on in laughter and others in love. No life is unimportant. And no life is forever. 

Life is a narrow bridge--- the important thing is not to fear.



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