Marker in the Time of Healing

The other day...digging deep into a drawer of old music tapes...I came upon an unmarked one...camouflaging as a blank tape...but as I held it in hand I knew that I was holding more than a mere tape of favourite songs...for this particular one had been a marker...over the years...of how tight the past...was still holding on to me... despite how much I had been able to leave behind...where it belonged....
It had been many years since I'd been able to actually listen to the tape...especially one of the songs on it... 'Qu'appelle Valley'...Buffy Ste Marie's beautiful song of hopeful...magical...new love...because of the range of emotions tied to personal events which I had come to associate with that song...and the incredible period in recent Native American history which had brought it forth...
Music has always been such a central part of my life that...I cannot help but associate certain songs and artists with periods of my life...a few of them ever constant...sailing and guiding me through times of hope and times of pain...like old friends who are just...there...to help...through the telling of their lives...their journeys...but which also become... reminders...of the passing of years...of people found and lost...and of life times come and gone......
This song is one of those...which...became actually painful to listen to...so I stopped trying...although every once in while I would test the waters...so to speak...see if I could listen without the welling up of those bittersweet feelings...bringing me back...to where I didn't want to revisit...
So...feeling brave the other day...as my hand reached in and unexpectedly grasped that tape...I put it on... to that song...and waited for that undescribable cutting feeling to start rising from my centre.....but...something else started radiating instead...the feeling...I had the first time I listened to that song...that album...free from my tangled memories good and bad...when only the joyous beauty of the song surrounded me...Buffy's pure music and words eliciting visions of a hope and love...a homecoming... to be reached for...
This is a good sign...and tells me that I've passed another marker in ... this particular...point of healing...and that it's just... about...complete..... It's also really good...just to be able to hear...and again enjoy...that sensuous music... with an open...and dancing...heart...