Every morning I take a shower. Not just because I want to be nice to be near, but even more because if I don't, my hair (what there is left) stands out in all directions and flatly refuses to lie flat. This gives me the "gray hedgehog" appearance that reminds me of Dagwood, or even worse, of a porcupine in full fright.
Every morning, I find myself singing little snippets of whatever I can remember of songs from various artists. I have read that the reason we sing in the shower is that as the water droplets are forced through the shower head, they create negative ions much in the way that waves crashing upon a beach result in a freshness that you can feel in the air. You can't help yourself. You feel like singing!
Of course, another reason may be the acoustics. The shower produces white noise, which muffles the whiny overtones in my morning voice, and convinces me that I could have had a career in the music industry if only I could have vanquished the stage fright.
Last week, it was Stompin' Tom Connors. More particularly, it was the lines:
"Tonight I'm due to bushwhack Sue
And take her to the Gumboot Cloggeroo
And do a little gumboot cloggin' (repeat 3)"
This week, Joni Mitchell :
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
You pave paradise, put up a parking lot."
You might think it would more thematically appropriate to sing something like "Singin' in the Rain" or "Gonna wash that man right outta my hair". But you'd be wrong. Why? Because I don't decide consciously what to sing. It just happens, the way dreams happen.
I don't choose what I sing with this in mind. Like dreams, the mental pictures come to me, and I respond to them, not even knowing why I sing what I sing, or even why I sing.
It would be interesting to hear the songs that emanate from other people's shower stalls, if this theory has any substance to it, and then compare their selections with how they coped with their day.
I think the Stompin' Tom song may have been calibrating some purpose or goal that I wanted to accomplish that day, but since I don't remember which day it was, my theory remains unproven.
The Joni Mitchell is different. I had seen her on YouTube a couple of days back, and the lines I quoted above were apparently the ones that stuck with me.
Perhaps it was a reflection that as an Old Guy My Age, I'm not maybe quite as appreciative of people as you might think I should be for an Old Guy My Age. That thought percolated for a couple of days until it suddenly popped out on the Morning Shower Mantra Show.
So if there's anything to it, I plan to listen to my musical selections with a little more intention. Who knows? Someday I might be vocalizing a refrain from the Moody Blues , like:
"I've decided to do what I can and to find the kind of man I really am."
And then maybe that very same day, I'll find me!
Footnote: Do dreams have a purpose?
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3 comments:
I definitely think that what one sings comes from a subconscious purpose. I think you sang Stompin' Tom last week because you had an encounter with an eyeball picture of your son and you had decided to buy yourself an eyeball so he could ogle you back. The plan took a few days to complete from buying said item, to installing it, to actually connecting with said son and executing the intended purpose. You and he used to sing Stompin' Tom songs when you drove together, sing or listen, whatever. So, there's a strong association from Tom to Ross in your mind. Hence, the subconscious singing.
I know I do it all the time. There's a song for every happening in life.
Or Ross to Tom.
Could well be. "I just don't know exactly." (Gumboot Cloggeroo).
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