Music Does It: About Love and Sustenance

In a crowd of approximately 19,000 other sweltering, like-minded humans, most of them behind me, I am dazed and enthralled by half-naked Adam Levine swaying within my grasp, a mere arm-stretch away. There's a tiny zit on the lower left region of his abdomen, and a few red spots on his back. When he gazes to his right, the stage lights illuminate his irises, so I can see the bright, cool green of his eyes. It is a rarity to see a human so close to being perfectly proportionate and symmetric as he. Yet, this is not what attracts me to him. Or so I tell myself.

This, for me, is about being close to someone inspired, unafraid to be exactly as he is - goofy, nerdy, unapologetic, staggeringly talented, astute,  purposefully self-deprecating, with a slightly aloof exterior, but a burning heart. Someone whose being is utterly permeated by movement and rhythm. I am hoping some of it will rub off on me.

I blow a kiss to Adam-man and he notices, half-smiles, raises his forearm, points, and prances in my direction, ... while still singing.

I bounce up and down like a 15-year-old, forgetting the weight of time, excess-poundage, mundane quandaries, mental struggles, and the slithering omnipotent water dragon whom my family and I were trying to elude in my dreams last night.

Infused with lightness of heart, happiness-bound, I will claim it all boldly, unabashedly, because like other parents, I strive to unravel the walls of the daily grind stagnating my being. I am intent on staying connected to myself in, and outside, the company of my children. And what my Self needs in order to be at peace and persevere, is all-consuming music.

When you are nursing a young child, or two, or three, into full-fledged humans, you just might get lost in them. Some parents give themselves over not only abundantly, but happily. However, for the lot I know, as the children and years pile up, so does the crushing feeling that you don't know how to be away from them. It starts with sleep-deprivation, and ends with being unable to listen to the pulsating, telling rhythm of the heart. Your own, that is.

No, this is not about Adam Levine, but about what sustains me, about how I get to breathe through the difficult moments, the ones that put me on the precipice of bad parenting on an absurdly dependable schedule.

My saving grace is music. Whenever I remember to put it on at the onset of the day, and every time, and as soon as we cross over our home's threshold, children start to beam, our feet dance, faces grimace playfully, and our hearts flutter. Tears of relief, and joy spill over my eyelids. With face wet, sticky with salt, I feel cleansed and full of hope again, despite poor literal and metaphorical sustenance. Life is good, when I know I have just had a near escape with my auspicious drill sergeant Self. "Hi, mama!" my husband rolls in on a sweet melodic voice. And just like that, I feel, for a lasting, singular moment, complete.

Music does it. It propels me to the love I already have in my heart, and nearby, at arm's length. As far as mental sustenance goes, can you think of a better kind?