Shuffle the Deck...

Up early again this morning to avoid heatstroke whilst walking the dogs.  I'm dreaming of snow, and cold winds, and buckets of rain pouring in sheets down the windows.  This climate is so not for me.  My only consolation today--as I'm driving down the mountain before 9:00am, already sweating--is there's only another month or so to suffer through until the nights get cooler, and the temps during the day begin to drop into the 70s.  Big whoop.

So, I park the car by the baseball complex and before we all pile out, I fiddle with my MP3, deciding on which playlist I want on this hot Monday morning.  I've got four lists at the moment:  concerts I've been to, my favorite songs of all time, calming meditation stuff, and one hit wonders where I just like one song from the artist...like Miss Li's Dancing the Whole Way Home. 

I'm going to be metaphysical here and let the music show me the way, set the tone.  I hit shuffle three times, like you do with a deck of tarot cards before a reading, get the dogs leashed up and off we go into the heat of an already scorching morning, the songs beginning to randomly play in my head...

Favorite Songs of All Time playlist:

(In the order my MP3 shuffled them...)

Night Moves - Bob Seger
Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
I'm On Fire - Bruce Springsteen
One of These Nights - Don Henley, The Eagles
Don't Take Me Down - Lamont Cranston Blues Band
Half of My Mistakes - Jace Everett
Walking Blues - Paul Butterfield
Here I Go Again - Whitesnake
I Don't Want to Miss a Thing - Aerosmith

Nine songs chosen, out of approximately 60 in this playlist.  If this were an actual tarot card reading, what in the world is the message here?

After a bit of reflection, I can actually see bits of my story in this.  Shadows of the past swirling around me, while I'm still searching for something I've yet to find, made harder because of the freight train running through the middle of my head.  I've been taken down--more than once--but I shouldn't dwell on regrets because good things have come from half my mistakes.  I might be feeling blue and lonely sometimes, but that's life, isn't it?  So here I go again, back on my own...though I don't think I was born to walk alone.  And damn, I've gotta keep going forward really, because I don't want to miss a thing.

Do we play the music?  Or does the music play us?