Oasis.

You know, I had a very quirky experience on the taxi ride home last night. The cab driver was an Indian bloke with one of those meditative demeanors that immediately set you at ease. He was very polite when I got in, and asked me how I was. Genuinely asked, as opposed to just putting the question out there. He put on some delicate flute music of modern love songs by the likes of Celine Dion. I hold a passionate hatred for Celine Dion but this music was a bit different. It wasn’t technically the stuff to calm raging bulls but I sat back and just chilled anyway. I ignored the random craptastic lyrics that kept popping into my head, and just went with the feel of things. It’s nice to do that sometimes, no?

Anyway, the taxi driver eventually asked me if the music was OK, saying I could change it if I wanted. I said it was fine, and he smiled a bit wryly. We got a little farther up town and he turns to me and says:

“If you fall in love, what do you do?”

I was off in my own head, some so I wasn’t paying attention to the music at that point. That comment shook me out of my zone though, and I laughed. I was a bit stumped so I offered a little “huh?” and he just giggled at me. “It’s a strange question, isn’t it,” he says. I’m just looking thoroughly perplexed at this point so he offers that it’s the lyrics to the music we’re listening to. I cracked up at that point. He told me about how his daughter had bought it for him specially to play for his customers. I said I thought it was calming and he agreed. All his “nervous” customers relax to it, he claims. It made this funny little cab seem like a small oasis for the lucky few.

Incongruity was a bit of the theme for the whole night, though. I’m a cynical, sarcastic sort most of the time but sometimes something just catches your attention, and this cab driver certainly did that. He was just pleased as punch to get compliments for his music. I was thinking about it later, and realised that outside of context I’d probably hate the music. I’m almost sure I would. I wouldn’t have listened to it under normal circumstances. Certainly not so closely and that is what makes the difference.

You can hear the most relaxing music in the world, or have the greatest meal ever right there in front of you but unless you’re open to it it may be only so much fluff and nothing. It can pass us by all too easily. Unless you slow down, and take the time for things outside the realm of your immediate perceptions you don’t tend to have the capacity to enter things as fully. So make room for things, is what I’m saying. Make it a bit of a priority sometime. It’s a “no d’uh” kind of point but it’s also something I know I could do to be reminded of more often.

There’s a Joni Mitchell song that captures it well called One Tin Solider Rides Away. It’s a story of two warring clans, and treasure and the value we place on things that go unseen. You may ask the world for treasure, and receive it but unless you place value on all things, even those that aren’t precisely what you were looking for then it may not come to much.