Looking At Life As A Road . . .

This past weekend my family and I were visiting Austin, Texas for the weekend. The Hill Country area of Texas is one of our favorite locations. The highlight of the trip was a Keiko Matsui concert at the One World Theater. About the One World Theater -- if you are in Austin check out this concert venue. The outside has the rustic Hill Country feel to it. Then inside the seating has a casual jazz club feel to the atmosphere. They offer pre-concert dinner packages so a couple or a group of friends can have a full enjoyable evening at their concert venue. Their website is www.oneworldtheatre.org . We did not partake in the dinner package as we were traveling such a distance and busy during the day we weren’t sure we could make dinner there in time.

Moving on to the actual concert, Keiko was showcasing her new CD, The Road… as well as playing some songs from previous recordings. We were looking forward to the concert as it has been over 10 years since my wife and I had heard her live in Chicago. This was also the first time our daughter had heard her live. Keiko did not disappoint our anticipation. She was energetic as always and exuded positive energy in her performing. Her new songs showed her continual growth in creativity. There were new styles mixed in with the familiar styles of her older work. That is what lifelong learning is all about -- continual growth and stretching to create the new. I found a couple of new songs from her CD already posted on YouTube. Check out the song Awakening by clicking on the title and you can enjoy the song. You will like the song so much you will want to purchase her CD at your local music retailer.

The concert was refreshing. Even though I had been sick that week the time in her concert strengthened my body and mind as I mindfully enjoyed listening to her music. She has a knack for having a great band to work with. Each of the players enjoyed what they were playing and are talented musicians each in their own right. I always enjoy a keyboard player who becomes absorbed into their instrument as I can tell the artist is experiencing flow and bringing out the best performance as possible. Keiko is like this and it makes watching and listening to her artistry captivating.

In one of the few times she spoke during the concert she touched on a concept that I want to share with you to ponder and savor in your thinking. She shared that in compiling the CD she was doing personal reflection on her life journey – something I encourage often on this blog. She titled the CD The Road. . . as each of our lives are like a road. Each one of us have a uniquely different road to travel with varying twists and turns. Our roads are made up of our relationships, environments, cultures, belief systems. The most important point she stated was that the true title of the CD focuses on the “Dot, Dot, Dot” as she emphasized the three consecutive periods after the word ”Road”. These simple dots stand for the simple reality that each day of our life our personal Road keeps going on. As with Dr. Krumboltz’s Happenstance theory and Dr. Bright’s Chaos theory, we do not know for sure what is around the bend or over the hill in our Road. But still we travel on. We travel on with positive anticipation for good ahead. Personally for me that is where my faith in God is often the strongest in knowing that He knows what is around each bend. Her sharing her heartfelt thoughts behind the CD helped me in my own personal reflection during the concert and allowed me to enjoy the experience of the concert on a deeper level. If you ever have the opportunity to hear Keiko in concert definitely take that opportunity on your road trip through life.

Reflection:

Take some quiet time with a piece of 8 ½ x11 paper and a pen. Draw a curvy road from the bottom corner to the opposite top corner. Divide the road in 10 year increments going a couple of increments past your present age. Jot down above and below the road key aspects of life that happened to you on that portion of the road. As for the 10 years beyond your present age jot down some dreams you would like to do in the next 10 to 20 years.