Sunday, March 3, 2013

Rhythms



My husband was helping me choreograph a wedding dance for a friend’s wedding.  The choreography had to be fun, but easy, too.  I turned on the music and I showed my husband what I was thinking of teaching the bridal couple.  Suddenly, he said, “You’re not on the beat!”


What!!??


Huh!
 

What do you mean I’m not on the beat??!!  I am always on the beat!  It is my JOB to be on the beat.  No –it’s my life to be on the beat!!!!”


I really was kidding, but what he said was true – for him.  


He had been tapping out his own beat to the song – one that I didn’t at first hear.  But when I really concentrated on it – there it was.  I could see my husband had a point.


We all hear the rhythm in different ways.  We focus on separate threads in a piece of music and we choose which rhythm or melody we hear.


In life, we all have our own ways of being, our own ways of seeing people, relationships, and events.  We choose what part of each of these we pay attention to.  No one is wrong.


All these disparate harmonies and beats magically come together to make one beautiful song.  


All of us, despite our differences, somehow harmonize as our lives flow onward -- even if there is, inevitably, a jarring note or two….or three.


We hear our own drum, we dance to our own beat, and hopefully we can remember to appreciate the rhythms of others. 


It’s all part of the same symphony.