This month’s gratitude is a shout out to my favorite song: “More Than This” by Roxy Music. The song was first recorded in 1982 and released on the Avalon album. I don’t remember where I first heard it - though it was probably on KROQ radio in LA - but I do remember that I liked it straight away. Over the years, the song has become my very favorite. I play it when I’m happy and when I’m sad; when I’m celebrating or feel especially grateful to the universe. I play it just because.
At first, the song served as a way to mark a particular moment of joy: getting my first teaching job while in grad school; when I moved into my first house; finding out that I was pregnant; celebrating the birth of that baby; getting my job in New Jersey; moving into Sassafras House on Second Street; falling in love; doing something from my bucket list. “More Than This” has been there for so many happy parts of my life.
In the last few years, this song of which I never tire has become less about a particular celebration and more of a reminder to appreciate the here and now, imperfect though it may be. I listen to “More Than This” a great deal; in some patches of time, I listen to it every day. *I know every chord of the song, the way it begins and closes, the way the notes rise and fall. The long bridge of instrumental music at the end of the recording, a sound that reminds me of the grace I experience in this life. I never tire of the song nor its reminder that life, as well as its trials and joys, are fleeting. There is nothing to be gained from wishing time away and everything to be gained by embracing - and loving - what we do have. After all, as the song reminds me, “there is nothing more than this.”
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