84,000 Different Delusions

For years, I've been under the impression that I don't like Nina Simone. Because of the network of shared playlists at la oficina, I've rediscovered her, via a coworker's iTunes library. And I love it. You know what it's like? It's like trying a refined food (or a food with complex tastes) for the first time when you're a child, when your tastebuds are untested and incapable of appreciating the textures different tastes afford. You may remain convinced that you hate said food, until one day, inexplicably, you are moved to try it again, and it is instant love. What happened? Did the food change? No, you did. Now you have a collection of food experiences that has properly oriented your tastebuds to receive this long-hated delicacy. This food, unbeknownst to you, has developed a context. A place in the spectrum of things you now cherish.

I also used to be under the impression that I did not like Jazz. It was torture listenting to my grandfather's records when I was little. I longed for the mindless pop of the day--not Bitches Brew, Blue Train, and Kind of Blue. Now, though, the colliding, non-melodic, law-unto-itself notes of a jazz riff are where I feel the most at home in music.

Each week, I try to open myself up to something that I've been closed to before. This week I've learned that it just doesn't get much better for me than Simone's version of "I Loves You Porgy."

Each week, I also write out a list of everything I'm afraid of in that moment. And then I come back to it a week later. I usually discover that within a span of 7 short days that everything I fear has either vaporized or worked itself out.