Before I was ready to call myself an atheist, I used to say that music was my religion.
I grew up with music; one of my father’s many careers was as a musician and there was nearly always something on the radio or record player when I was little. Folk, rock, and classical mostly, but those are such broad genres that in practice I was exposed to a little of nearly everything.
There was always a guitar in reach, or other instruments: flutes and recorders, small drums, a keyboard. A child’s dulcimer complete with follow-along sheet music you could fit right under the strings, and blank sheets to write your own songs with. Later, a gorgeous old upright piano.
And, of course, singing.
One of my earliest memories–quite possibly the earliest memory–is of the lullaby my mother used to sing to me and my sister, starting when we were still infants. I sing it to my own children, now. She got it from a book on baby massage; it’s in another language and I never learned what it meant.
When our oldest was an infant herself, right after we’d moved out of the studio apartment we’d lived in when she was born, I spent one long night rocking her back and forth as I paced the dark apartment, humming the most soothing tones I could invent, silently begging her to stay calm just a little longer, so her renny could get some desparately-needed sleep.
One pattern of notes in particular started to repeat itself, a sort of melancholy tune, fitting for a lullaby. I spent much of that night working on it, infant in arms: getting the melody just right, coming up with words I could put to the notes. It was the first song I’d written since that old dulcimer I’d had as a child.
I named it “Stars.”
When planet Earth stops turning
When all the stars go dark and cold
When Time itself is ending
My love for you will still burn bright
My love for you is infinite
When planet Earth was stardust
When all the stars were newly born
When Time itself was waking
My love for you was ancient
My love for you is infinite
Climb to the highest mountain
Dig to the planet’s molten heart
Fly to the constellations
My love for you’s already there
My love for you is infinite
Count every rock and raindrop
Span every cell and galaxy
Weigh every star and black hole
My love for you is vaster yet
My love for you is infinite
In Search of Secrets 