Morning Commute Soundtrack: Van Morrison

Last spring, as I was picking up the pieces of my shattered confidence and trying to figure out which direction I wanted my life to head in, I got something I didn’t think I would ever get. No, it wasn’t a call-back to a resume I had sent out; this was even better: it was an email from a former supervisor who had recommended me for a job. (I had completely forgotten that I even worked for him, as I had no day-to-day contact with him; in fact, I was reluctant to respond, thinking he had mistaken me for my similarly-named father, who also worked for him.)

Through a careful process of interviews and not royally fucking anything up, I got the job, which was an astounding accomplishment to me. Considering I was in the post-nervous breakdown healing stages at the time, I’m surprised I was able to get it together long enough to appear like I knew what I was doing, but the company wasn’t shocked by my emaciated appearance and unkempt haircut, so that they were willing to take a risk on me was a boost to my confidence.

As I started the lengthy, hour-long trawl from house to work, I became reacquainted with my iPod and music that I had acquired during the endless five-month dark period, and the best thing I could have done was to pick an album at random and hope for the best. Van Morrison’s Into The Music is an album that I will cherish, because it represents to me a time of optimism and hope, when the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel had finally arrived, and even though I was emotionally bruised and battered, and left a mess by the events that had transpired, I still had music to keep me going. I remember driving down the turnpike, the windows in my Jeep down as I let the early morning springtime sun warm me up, as I blasted not only this album, but – more specifically – this song, the stand-out track ‘And The Healing Has Begun’. It’s about that pink, gooey, velvety honeymoon phase, the elation felt when falling in love and knowing that it’s right.

Today marks my first year of full employment; even though I started as a freelancer late in May, the company was impressed enough to hire me on, and though that gooey honeymoon phase is long gone, I associate this song with the beginning of my own healing, and though the rest of the year would see plenty of emotional upheaval, I was finally fully healed in the middle of December. But that’s another song for another entry…