Saturday, January 24, 2004
The Taxi theme song is sorting my life out. The moment it began playing I felt the world around me quickly shift into focus. Such an amazing piece of music. It seems to put me in total contrast to the rest of life much like the song seems to be in contrast to what a sit-com theme song should be.
Okay so you know Taxi is coming up and you're excited to see the raw, germinating talents of such greats as Danny Devito, Christopher Lloyd, and Andy Kaufman. This expectation takes the form of excitement, you're looking forward to a half-hour of hilarious comedy, an uproarious celebration of entertainment. Then the music starts.
And while those expectations linger, they are sublimated beneath a wave of serenity. Sometimes we can't tell the similar strains of our life apart until they're played to a new background. The chords have changed, the harmony is different, the mood is new...it's all a study in contrasts. The melody remains the same but the perspective is different.
So has this led me to a new understanding of life, of my part in the universe? Maybe it's enough to see the wonders around me in a new way for a little while. To feel differently for just one second about everything I've taken for granted since birth. A glimpse outside my own mind.
This is the power of music to me: a glimpse past my limitations, a chance to grow up and see everything again for the first time, the opportunity to re-live those few precious moments in my life that I never want to forget.
Someone once said that it's the little things in life that make it worth living. I agree. Life can be hard, cold and unforgiving, yes. But I survive from day to day on the little glimpses of heaven I get as I peer through the clouds: the setting sun over the north bay; a crisp, foggy night along a walk of moonlights; the sweet surmounting fury of Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto; a laugh with my friends; a glance at the deep night sky.
Taxi's contrary theme catches my expectations so by surprise every time I hear it that I can't help but regard it as one of the sweetest moments of blessing from God. A glimpse into heaven. I hint of what is to come. And this seems to put my priorities in order without any effort on my part; it sorts my life out.
So I survive from day to day on this hope. The hope of a heaven on earth that I will see and breathe and relish in some day. The hope that I catch glimpses of from day to day.
The hope I feel when Taxi comes on.
posted by rob conci
