Slow down and listen

I could only get am radio. In my first car, that is. Music was a big deal to me back then and so, am radio troubled me. To me, it was out-dated, old and irrelevant. Out of sheer desperation I tried station after station. I listened to announcers who paused for way-too-long-between-sentences. I laughed as listeners rang up for talkback, giving their opinions on young people today in stern and cautionary voices.

As I slowly opened my ears, a strange thing happened. The more I listened, the more I fell in love with this slow paced world of am radio with its prepaid funeral package ads and community announcements for senior citizens. But it was the music that changed me. It had an innocence. The melodies and harmonies were more complex than I initially thought and the lyrics told a story that were sweet, sad, poignant and meaningful. The strange juxtaposition of a cheery melody against tales of losing a loved one to another just made my heart soar.

So the other day, years after my conversion to am radio I heard an announcer say this quote by someone unknown. ‘If you don’t stand for something, you could fall for anything.’ See what I mean, you can learn a lot from slowing down and taking your time to listen.