Temporary Walls

Why is it that whenever I set out to write a new blog post, the first thing I wind up doing is asking rhetorical questions? Like just now for instance, as I was thinking how to start off today's blog post the first thing I thought of typing was a question that I would answer.

Ironically, I can't stand it when people do that when speaking. Now I know that like me with my writing, they're simply thinking out loud, or trying to get a point across but to me...it just sounds weird. So why am I so inclined to do it in my blog posts? There I go with the questions again! But hey, at least with a rhetorical question I always have an answer right?

Well, enough of the contemplative me. Let me steer myself back on track here, keeping my eye on that mountain, old house, tree, or town at the end of this narrow, straight country road I set upon when first beginning to write this week's blog post. This time I won't glance down the many dirt roads or pockmarked blacktop roads meandering and twisting off of the main road, I won't get sidetracked! I'm going to stay on topic and stick to the title of today's post. Which is...what you ask? Temporary walls?

You're probably thinking, oh great, another ambiguous, creatively spun blog post title that will cause any passersby to lift an eyebrow and wonder, perhaps arousing myriad possibilities in their mind until they either grasp at something or fall through them all and give up. Whatever you're thinking this post is about, I promise it won't be able writing but in fact...music!

Yes, that's right, music! Remember when I used to write about that? Honestly, I can't even remember the last post I wrote about such a topic, but nevertheless, here it is! Now perhaps it's because I grew up with a generation ensconced in iPod's, iPad's, iTunes and mp3 players in general, but admittedly I listen to music...a lot. And most of the time it's through my iPod. And yes, I was - and possibly still am! - one of those teenagers - and now young-adults - who listens to their music too loud. Why? Because I like it loud! When I'm listening to music it's for a reason, which you might argue, isn't that why everyone listens to music? There I go with the questions again. Perhaps I'll come back to that later.

For instance, before writing this blog I thought of all the times I usually listen to music: sitting in my bedroom before bed, unable to fall asleep so I plug in my iPod, riding in the car on a long trip with my family, so I listen to music to drown out my parent's own music or the sounds of the highway, walking to my classes on campus, as well as waiting for them to start, or even when I'm at home on break or during the weekends I'll listen to music while doing dishes, or while I'm on facebook I'll open up YouTube, and so on and so on. What do all of these reasons have in common? I'm listening to my music to filter out the world around me, or to make a mundane task or wait go by faster. That's what I mean by temporary walls. When I put my headphones in my ears and select a song on my iPod, I'm placing those temporary walls around me like walking into the middle of a field and standing completely still, listening to the wheat whisper a shout around me. When the wind rises up from the valleys above and dives into their depths their chorus becomes deafening, They are singing a song unknown to your ears, silence is shattered gently around you like sand falling from a hand onto a windowpane. You are surrounded by temporary walls in that field, whispers that fold around you, silence ebbing away like the ocean slipping back into its skin, leaving the sand slick and sparkling.

I find it quite ironic for how much I treasure and truly crave the tranquility and silence of the countryside and its slow-pace of living unfolding with the days like a pop-up book read by a frail springtime wind fluttering its pages one by one, whenever I find myself home alone or waiting for a class to begin, or even when I'm jacketing one book after another at my job at the library, I need those temporary walls of electric guitars, 90's songs, raspy and smooth voices and familiar lyrics to build up around me, folding that silence back until I stand not in a square of that whispering field but a house of bricks made with no mortar, windows with no glass panes, a roof with no shingles. Walls that are there, but temporary, missing their solid components. Well, that might the world's longest sentence, eh? Such is one of my issues I must confess. I also must confess I'm doing nothing to change it. It'll be addressed sooner or later I know, but for now? I'll leave you to suffer through it, fellow blog readers. After all, it's not like you're reading this out loud or anything right?

Anyway, what I've found over the years is that music - any type that I like more specifically - makes me retrospective. Which is to say, it makes me reflect on many things. Like what you ask? Well, not to be stereotypical or anything but basically...my life! How I've gotten to be at UW Green-Bay, how I've managed to live on campus away from home, how my writing is going, how my characters are developing, places I'd like to go, the kind of life I'd like to have after graduation...and on and on. I've found that my mind, for how much it craves that silence of the countryside actually needs and craves those temporary walls just as much, so it can wander amongst those mortar-less walls, gaze through the pane-less windows at thoughts and dreams that somehow only reach me through temporary walls. But, you ask, how can something form within something that really isn't there? A brick house cannot stand without mortar, windows aren't windows without panes. And you certainly can't call it a house if it doesn't have shingles! Well, I'm sure it's no secret that my mind comes back to old houses again and again like a merry go round always stopping in the same place, and even though you run around to find a different horse the same one is always waiting for you when you stop, leaving you no choice but it get on.

All along I had believed silence made me retrospective, and in truth it does. Whenever I go on road trips with my family in the countryside I'll stare out my window for hours, looking at my thoughts while simultaneously looking at the countryside. Why? Because the countryside makes me retrospective! My brother will ask me what I'm looking at, and I find it hard to describe. But most often during these trips I'm listening to...you guessed it, music! So in fact it is music that carries my mind to that temporary house of my dreams and memories, but it is silence that sweeps them away and brings to me the whispers of the countryside itself, or the beauty of a silent abandoned house, speaking to me in fragments of song.

Fragments of song, now that's an idea for next week's post! And yes, once again, it's about music.