“Was it just a dream?” – Music that makes me think.
With just days to go until my final assignment of the semester is handed in, I’m predictably scrolling through YouTube, searching for an inspirational mix of background music – one that will take my mind away from distractions and lead to progress on my project. There is always the risk, though, that I slip up and watch a series of videos where someone builds a boat from scratch, or reinvents the computer using marbles and string.
Today after a good break watching yet another DIY creation come into being, I stumbled across a compilation of songs, entitled “Was it just a dream ?”. I’m drawn to the title. The theme of impermanence has been one I’ve grappled with for some time now. This idea that what surrounds us all is not going to be here forever, is still slightly beyond my comprehension. Perhaps our pasts didn’t really happen, or weren’t quite as we had believed them to be.
The image, static throughout the video, shows two boys standing atop a hill, surrounded by fields. One looks forward, out towards a valley of fields. The other turns away, his head tilted down, looking back over his shoulder, perhaps into the past.
On the photographer Claire’s Flickr page, the image is captioned “The failure keeps you humble.” Looking back reminds us of what has been, and where our choices have taken us to. I choose to believe that humility is good for us, or at least helps us to reflect.
The image of the two boys reminds me of a moment in my year 9 English class. My teacher, Mr. Janks, would talk so enthusiastically about the opportunity we had to make a difference in the world around us. He would speak about ‘the beauty of life’ with music and art.
We spent a literature lesson watching Kes, Ken Loach’s 1966 adaptation of ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’. A heart-wrenching story of life in a mining town and the relationship between a teenager and a bird of prey that he comes to train and treat as his own: the story explores finding hope in areas where there seemingly is none – and how joy can seemingly disappear at a moment’s notice.
Whilst I’m reminded of this film, I don’t think the music compilation is a sad one.
It is tinged with sadness, a feeling of longing for what once was or could have been. An idealisation of the past. To me, thinking and remembering the past is so very important, no matter how strongly our emotions wave over us and crash onto the shore. To remember a moment is to relive it, and to live in any sense is, to me, joyful.
The moments in which I feel most deeply are those where I reflect. Thinking about the things I am most proud of, alongside those that I deeply regret. One must always be joined to the other. That isn’t to say of course that you always need to feel shame or sadness, but that knowing the entire spectrum of emotion is what allows us to truly feel.
One song in this compilation that speaks to my heart is Nicholas Britell’s Agape. From his soundtrack to ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’, with themes of love, joy and possibilities, both uplifting and melancholic in the same moment. All I want to do is reflect, think about the joy I’ve had in my life and hope that I get to experience it all again and more.
I take a scroll through Claire’s Flickr album and find myself hit by nostalgia as she shares photos of friends, laughing, smiling and having fun. Each picture with a warm, welcoming grain. With her last upload over 10 years ago, there is not a smartphone in sight, but simply people enjoying the moment and living. I wish that it was possible to return to this world.
However much I’d like to go back in time, I do understand that it simply isn’t an option. Both due to the constraints of physics, and the need to keep moving forward. When I feel homesick I now understand that I’m not missing a place – but rather a point in time and the people that existed in that moment. If I were to go back, I’d be sad to find that they no longer exist there, for they also moved forward in time and followed their own path.
So, what if it were just a dream? Would it be all that bad, to have lived and experienced and loved and cried? What are we, if not shaped by every one of our experiences? I believe our thoughts to be no less valid regardless of when, where or how they were formed. The only thing that matters now is where we journey to next, and how we might get there through living in the present moment.
That’s where I’ll place my focus.