Thank You For The Music

Music has been a special part of my life for as long as I could remember. It’s hard to trace back to how and when the love of music snuck up on me, but before I knew it, it had already been long in place. It could have been during one of my last days in kindergarten, when I was almost 6 years old. I was running around with my friends in the courtyard during recess, when suddenly the PA system started playing a popular children song in Vietnam at the time: “Goodbye, my beloved doll”. The melody in A minor key longingly accompanied the lyrics:

“Goodbye, my beloved doll

Goodbye, my dear teddy bear

Goodbye, my lovely white bunny

I’m going on 1st grade tomorrow

I’ll miss you so much

How can I forget you, my beloved kindergarten school?”

It was one of the earliest instances I could recall a part of my tiny 6-year-old-heart faintly aching. I continued playing and laughing with my friends, but my ears were listening to the song calling out to me. It reminded me that everything I knew was about to change, that it was almost time to say goodbye to my friends, my teachers, and my familiar classrooms. I was going to be a 1st grader and reach a whole new level of “maturity”, as my mom put it, and I wasn’t really sure what was ahead. I didn’t know what saying goodbye really meant, and somehow the song gave me a hint. At 6 years old, I was sad, excited, and nostalgic all at the same time.

It also could have been thanks to the old stereo at my grandparent’s house, which was much older than I was. My grandpa had a large music CDs collection, including many of the signature Vietnamese artists and pre/post-war, romantic, ballads and even popular international genres of the time. We lived close by and visited often, and I often found my grandpa resting in his small office upstairs, listening to his favorite stereo. Everytime I walked into his office, I walked into a different time and place. Sometimes it was a determined melody and resolute calling to fight for your honor, your army brothers, and your country. Sometimes it was the wishful confiding and prayers of a young lady missing her long distance lover who fighting in the war. Sometimes it was the romantic poet falling in love with the familiar streets and people of his poor, imperfect, but soulful hometown. My grandpa's tiny office came to life with every song. As a kid, I barely gave any thought or gasped the depth of the message in each song, but something about the music always convinced me to sit down and quietly enjoy the moment with grandpa.

Maybe it was sometimes after our family moved to Hanoi, the big exciting capital city, where we could only afford a tiny apartment tucked away at the end of a long winding alley. Our neighbor loved playing music loudly with their doors open, and the thin wall allowed me to enjoy it just as much as I imagined I would at any grand concert. Celin Dion's “My heart will go on" was wildly popular at the time, and they would put it on replay every once in while. I had no idea what this foreign song in the strange language was about, but it was one of the prettiest things I had ever heard. I kept waiting for them to play it again and again. Every time, the song awoke something in me that I didn't quite understand, something that resembled a mysterious yearning for grand romance, an idea I was too young to even wrap my head around.

I don’t know which specific instance it was and when it was, but I started paying attention to music and music started paying attention to me. Growing up in a country that was still poor and recovering from decades of wars, I didn't grow up with cool gameboys, play stations or fancy toys. Our TV had 4 local channels, so not even Disney movies or kids’ shows. But there was never a shortage of music around me, even if I wasn't looking. Music told stories about people and experiences I had never known, and uncovered something deeper in my psyche as I relate myself to it.

Music has been accompanying me ever since, through schools, college and into adulthood. I picked up the piano and singing as a hobby, which enabled me to go beyond experiencing music, but learning more about it, and interacting with it. Music somewhat lost the mystifying effect in my childhood, but I grew to appreciate it even more deeply. Even and especially now, despite not pursuing music as a career, I still never find a shortage of music around me. I don't necessarily need to make time to enjoy music either, except on those special occasions of concerts or formal performances. When I work, I would have a slow jazz tune playing in the background. When I'm in the car running errands, I would practice singing to Youtube tracks. A friend with a nice voice could start singing, a lovely melody could start playing at a nice restaurant, or at any surprising time and place a moving, intimate song would come up, and I would be instantly hooked. It's a nice way to add colors to my days, just by letting music automatically grab a little extra of my attention. Inner peace can be found in the smallest pocket of time between the crazy demands of the world, through what you love dearly, which in my case is music.