Music is made in my house.
It isn’t the scratching of a young violin (although it could be in a few short years) or the hollow whistle of an elementary flute.
But our family — we make music.
Sometimes it’s the full low chords of a guitar. The girls take a bath and my husband sits outside the cracked door on the floor in the hallway. He picks out new songs he’s created just for them, and they sing under their breath as they send bath toyed-mermaids down a plastic slide.
Music is made.
Sometimes its the tentative notes of the piano. It rises up from where the girls sit on the bench, plunk plunking trying to figure the progression to a twinkling-star song they’ve known since the crib.
In my house music is also made by our laughter. By our words. It’s made by the background hum of a basketball game on TV while I fix Sunday lunch. Music is the silence when I sit side-by-side with my husband while we think of our future.
Music is the conversation over bowls of ice cream before bed. It’s the jokes learned and retold by an eight-year-old. The noise of the scooter in the back yard as it rolls over the patio. The sound of sisters tickling each other. The sad, hoping song my husband writes on the piano tonight, changing slowly and building like a sweet spring wind.
It’s music.
Even the whines, the screeches from a skinned shin or the crash when a jar of pickles tumbles from the icebox.
Tears. Angry questions. Four-year-old attitudes.
It’s all music.
I could try to filter it. I could try to separate the “ugly” from the “pleasant”. Then I might have song that’s happy, joyful and
perfect.
But I want it all. I want the beautiful imperfection of the scratched vinyl record. The kind I have to set the needle down in the gentlest of gestures along the smooth edge of the outside of the disc. The kind that clicks and skips when it’s done. The kind of record I have to flip over to hear the rest of the songs.
This kind of music isn’t perfect like a studio recording, digitally produced, enhanced and cleaned up.
It’s gritty and a little messy, and because of that, it’s perfect.
What does your imperfect “scratched record” sound like today?
It sounds like tears falling and landing on pages in a book over situations I can’t control and hurt for the one I love being hurt. I love that we are given the ability to feel so much for those we love.
It sounds like the eggs grilling in a pan that my husband cooked me before he went to work.
It sounds like a dirty house and a long list of to-dos that are being ignored for an hour or two so that I can spend time with my husband and with God, before I start my day.
I love the crazy, mixed-up sounds of life! What a beautiful sound it makes:)
Working all day (and secretly reading blogs for the first 1/2 hour of my time here), looking forward to going home to cook and eat dinner with my husband, catching up on all my late homework from last week and trying to get ahead in my homework for this week so I can finish my classes well.
The beauty that I try to find in a day of work that I don’t particularly enjoy is how God is providing through a little bit of stable income, how I am able to sit and listen to music in my headphones all day and how God often uses the music to speak to me, how I can sit and think while I work and often God uses that time to reveal stuff to me or just to “settle” and “process” all the thoughts in my head.
I may not be doing particulary what I want to do much of the time but I am still able to see the music it is creating in my life. and who knows…maybe in a couple months there will be a key change in my life and the music will sound a little different…:-)
It’s the sound of my son quietly crying because the Olympics are over, and it’ll never be the same again, Mommy! The sound of my husband comforting him, sharing his feelings as a boy at the end of the Olympic games, and validating his sad little heart. The utter satisfaction as he realizes his mom made his favorite breakfast to give him a food hug!
The sounds of water running as my son fills a cup full of water so he can begin painting. My 8 year old complaining about having to go to school, and my 2 year old chiming in about how she wants to go to school. My baby jumping in her jumpy to the sounds of her sibling singing to her, and the laughter as they do silly things just to be funny and try to make her laugh. The sound of guitar and misc. instruments float up the stairs as my hubby tries out a new song. The clink of dishes as my family gets together and sits down for a meal together, and chats about what’s going on in their day. The “I love You” from my toddler who has a speech delay and really can’t “say” much, and my son singing to the smallest to help her calm when she’s upset.
The sound of the dryer, working hard on the mountain of weekend clothes, the oven buzzing as my daughter cooks, The laughter of two little girls as they put the cat in the doll stoller and she (the cat) likes it. The Adventures in Odessey we listen to over an early lunch, the questions they ask and I answer over school work, I can’t wait to turn the record over and listen to the next side. I love this music.
Thanks for his reminder to stop and enough the music.
Cha Cha
these are beautiful! i can just here all the sounds of your houses this morning.
thank you for letting me in the front door. =)
The music in my house is the chorus of giggles from my 6 month old girl, and the choo-choooo! and vrooom of my 3 year old son as he plays with his cars and trains on our kitchen table. And the rhythym section is the clank of dishes being put away and food being cooked.
beautifully put … I grew up watching and dreaming of being in musicals … I try to tell my kids that God hears what kind of music we’re playing by what we say & do. Many times the sounds are not pretty, but it’s a part of the larger score of our life. There will be gentle lullabies of sweetness, but also loud blasts of hurt and echoing sounds of sadness … all of it makes up our own family’s song – unique and maybe not beautiful to anyone but us – but it’s ours and it’s our offering.
It is the sound of coffee brewing… being poured into my cup by husband. The chattering of little beauties as they commune over cereal and spilt milk. The frantic running around finding lost mitten, packing lunches, and waving the pillow high in front of the fire alarm because of the burnt toast. It is the sound of life in the morning!
i went to a worship conference once, and i recall them saying “there is no such thing as christian music, just christian lyrics, ALL music is Gods.”
everything you describe is the music in my house as well, ALL the music Gods. much of the time it is my favorite song; the laughter, the tickles, the girl’s playing with their dollies, a tea kettle whistling, the water pouring over the dishes after dinner, snuggling with michael after a full day.
and i, i need to see these things, hear these things as a beautiful favorite song. but often, instead, i complain because the music is turned up too loud, and i don’t enjoy this song written for me by my Maker.
i will enjoy the music today.
The music in our house is joy-filled, yet chaotic. It’s the strong sound of my oldest boy talking with his dad about college, the calm, gentleness of my middle daughter studying and the intense clanging of my youngest as her music seems to fill all the rooms of our home..her music leaves a mess wherever it can be heard! I love the scratched record of our crazy, imperfect, grace filled home!!
My scratched record is one that has been playing for nearly nine years with a scratched and crinkled cassette tape of four years as a prelude. It is filled with music of hope, and spiritual growth. Of two little chihuahuas barking & guarding, and whining for their dinner/treats/chewy sticks. Of I love yous and I’m sorry. of wild birds that sing outside and the roar of traffic on nearby streets. Of the tap tap on the keyboard. Of the hopes of a child’s laughter and cries for momma and daddy.
The music in my home is an orchestra of contradiction on most days. My home is my office where I spend hours a day listening to surgeons and oncologists and ER doctors tell stories of tragedy and triumph, the clicking of fingers on keys. It is a bittersweet soundtrack that almost always leaves me longing for the sweet tune of my husband’s keys in the door at the end of the day, the whispering melody of water brewing for a warm cup of tea and the end of the day music of cold feet sliding beneath warm sheets.
I love the soundtrack of my life.
Right now it sounds like laughter over a basketball repeatedly hitting that one spot above the door, a 4 year old turning everything into drumsticks and repeatedly drumming anything in sight and my 8 year old playing math games on the computer. And while I do LOVE these sounds and they are indeed music to my ears, right now w/a headache and my husband out of town I am counting the minutes until bedtime when I will hear a different kind of music that sounds like sighs and snuggles and heavy breathing and rest:)
The music is my children asking their daddy to play something other than Bob Marley’s Redemption song to them on his guitar.lol It’s listening to my kids snore at night from their
bunk beds. It’s wiping food off kitchen tables and chairs, and it’s folding clothes by husbands side as we watch his favorite team play. God has numbered each of our days, my ticket has a different number than yours, but I want to cherish each moment, each note in the music of
our lives. God Bless you Sarah. You are an inspiration to me.