Music: Good for the Soul

Picture, if you can, a vaguely sickly Jamie leaving the office on a Thursday afternoon. She's in normal work attire (probably jeans and a hopefully nice-ish shirt), messenger bag slung over one shoulder and is walking purposefully to the bus stop ready to be home. Her "I'm reading and ignoring the public at large" book is on the passenger seat of her car 20 or so miles south, making snuffling and coughing repeatedly the best please-keep-the-crazies-away tactic at her disposal. Got it? I can send a picture if needed... I'm pretty much still in this exact state. Good.

Look closer. What...is...she doing?! I she....skipping?? To Caltrain?? Who SKIPS to public transportation? Surely she is drugged! Insane! Delusional! Haven't we heard her rant endlessly as to the numerous horrors of traveling with the largely unwashed masses?

Zoom in. Around the ears. Aha! White headphones. The counterculture-maybe-hipster-turned-mainstream presence of Apple products has been detected! How, you ask, is this relevant? What about the proposed mandatory drug testing? Hold off on the urine sampling folks! Disappointed? It seems this Jamie-folk has just discovered or, more accurately, re-remembered the pleasures of music. No really!!

Its not like I forgot the iPhone plays music. Seriously. My little phone accompanies my just about everywhere. I rock out to my classic rock tunes on a daily basis in the imaginary bubble that surrounds my half-cube at work. (How else can you explain my dancing in my chair in full view of co-workers? But that's another story for another post.) In desperate times of poor satellite radio programming, I have even been known to listen to my music via the iPhone's speakerphone in my car (headphones while driving are illegal, damnit!). But, somewhere in between checking email on the go, texting friends, chatting up my mom and beating my all-time high score on Bejeweled, I lost sight of the function on which the i-products really gained popularity... music! Your songs! When you want them!

So last week, book-less and bitter, I boarded the bus and discovered my headphones had somehow happened into my pocket. Listlessly, I plugged in and hit shuffle; shoulders slouched with anticipation of the uncomfortably jostling ride ahead. And then it happened. I can't tell you what song came on (because I don't remember, not out of shame or anything), but it just fit. And in an instant, the world changed. My mood lifted. I sat up a little straighter. My head and neck afflicted that weird bob and peck thing that comes from wanting to sing aloud or dance along, but social norms of the location require you to be quiet and sit still. My foot started tapping. For those few minutes that the song was playing, I was, at some basal level, happy.

Maybe the music didn't really change anything substantial. Work is still work, and, really, don't get me started on all the craziness there. I still have name-change paperwork to do. The house is still a mess. Heck, I was (and am) still sick! There are still starving children just about everywhere, too many wars to track, and an upcoming election season that instills a level of dread in me that I can't really vocalize. But one song... the right song, at the right moment... when everything just melts away and you get into this groove... changes your perspective. Something in the tones, beat, words connects with your subconscious and your whole being dances along. Takes you out of the humdrum, beat down stresses of everyday life and reminds you that its not that bad... in fact, its kinda good to be alive.

Sometimes I wonder if other people get that. For their sake, I hope so - its a pretty cool thing. Actually, anything that makes me skip to Caltrain has to be something near amazing.

And dude - iPhone plays music! Whodathunkit?! But you can bet I'll remember it now.