Music has always felt so profoundly affective for me; I would have been a musician in another life. However, in this current incarnation, I tried several times to master the guitar. Still, I struggled with weak hands and coordination, so I settled for a deep appreciation and random karaoke nights.

Music is universal and essential across all cultures within our world. I often think about how our human ancestors strung together pieces of melodies before they even had the language to describe what they were doing. Maybe they hummed to themselves or made sounds that were pleasing to the ear, but I find it fascinating and affirming how vital music is. The idea that humanity had this way of communicating before the formation of language speaks to how essentially human that form of communication is.

I know that the drumbeat was sacred to early humans within the vast array of cultures that called Turtle Island home and within African nations. We store that same vibration and call for self-expression within our bodies today—perhaps on a cellular level. Music has been around long before recorded history, and it is part of our humanity and has been so impactful in my life. I reminisce about going to the record store as a kid and picking up a new album from an artist I loved. I typically ripped the package when I returned to my mom’s car and put it on immediately.

I listened to each track in order and would read along with the lyrics as I went through each song one by one. I mull over which ones were my favourite and mentally rank them in my mind, hoping the album I just purchased would be one with very few songs I would want to skip through. This was a different time, and things have changed quite a bit in how we consume media, specifically how we engage with music.

Concerts are still available, which is fantastic—especially in a post-Covid world. Still, I find the way my brain is wired, I always enjoyed going through an album this way, which I find is difficult for me to do nowadays because it’s so easy to get sidetracked or listen to one song by an artist instead of fully listening to more of their discography. At least in my personal experience, I found this to be the case.

I have developed more nostalgia for the memories I have from these years because I find myself listening to the same songs repeatedly, and I think having a visual reminder of those artists I love in front of me would be more helpful in remembering the bands I love so much but might have forgotten.

A few years ago, I was in the middle of an apartment move and was sifting through the entire contents of my life, which consisted of a few boxes and several bags of clothes that no longer fit me. I was throwing out 90% of my possessions because my low-income apartment was riddled with mould and it didn’t seem healthy to keep what little I had.

I remember listening to the words of a prolific author at that time who spoke about his spiritual development and his ability to part with possessions because he had reached enlightenment where material things were no longer needed in his life. About the benefits of minimalism, I took it as a sign that I might find a deeper level of spirituality by letting go of something that brought me immense joy. 

I had begun reconnecting to a spiritual journey and was thrust into a position where I needed to part with things—due to sheer necessity alone. I pondered his words and thought that I might do the same. I hadn’t opened the box containing the CDs in several years after suddenly needing to move back in with my mom. I wondered if ridding myself of my most cherished possessions would make me feel more connected to divine source energy.

It was almost a test for myself to prove that my proudest collection, which I carefully gathered from childhood through adolescence until my university years, ultimately was unnecessary, and my desire to hold on to these objects would eventually make me feel unfulfilled. I wanted to prove that I could let go of something vastly important to me, and I did. I packed up my large box of 135 CDs, brought them to a used CD store, and exited the building with $20 in my pocket and sadness I couldn’t shake for about a month.

I didn’t think of the ramifications the mould issue might have on his store, but his excitement led me to believe it would have been a nonissue for him anyway, and it is probably a good thing I don’t have them in my possession anymore. It’s strange to say out loud, but I did it as a test to see if I could part with something meaningful. It was something I knew objectively going into that CD store, and I can’t explain it in terms other than that, but I needed to do it for some reason, and I learned a lot from the situation.

Having grown up with limited means, to put it mildly, you know I always treasured everything I had, and as a family, we didn’t throw much away. Until this move in this mould situation, all my toys and books from childhood were contained within this small two-bedroom apartment. So, when I was going through the boxes that contained all my worldly possessions and remnants of seemingly every experience I ever had growing up, it became apparent and evident that not much was going to be moving with me—including my precious CDs.

I was keenly aware, even at this point in my history, of how transient life is and how accurate the adage is you can’t take it with you because the reality is this life, this world, my experiences will live on forever, but not in a literal physical sense, and for me to really fully grasp that concept and to fully engage with that thinking, I felt it necessary to part with something, one of the very few things I owned that brought me joy and even a sense of pride, because I felt called to do so.

It wasn’t because I wanted to, and it wasn’t because I needed to make a point about being pious to some other person because, honestly, I don’t think many people even knew I did this. It was about me leaning into that decision and feeling lost. I even felt frustrated with the author whose words inspired my actions because he was writing from a different place and point in his life.

I grappled with gender politics, power dynamics, and sheer wealth. How those variables vastly impact someone’s perspective on materialism and minimalism, but ultimately, I reconciled my emotions surrounding this decision with the idea that there’s an impermanence to life that makes it incredibly beautiful, heartbreaking, calming, and tragic but also allows the despair that I feel and have felt to be much more tolerable knowing that ultimately our lives are much shorter than we realize, and so is the pain we experience during our incarnations.

I come from the point of view and perspective that nothing is ever lost within the spirit world and that when I eventually make my journey home. I will have access to the things I loved and lost in this life, and I will sift through the long-awaited reunion with my most cherished possessions, at least the ones I cherished the most at the time when I last saw them and will have access to that box anytime, I want. I hope to grab an album and sing along as I drive down some old country road.