Music As a Travel Agent
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”—Aldous Huxley.
When my husband and I were in training in Iowa City at the University of Iowa, the Department of Otolaryngology (Ear, Nose, and Throat) put on a program in which the entertainment was a slide show of scenes from Iowa called “Iowa: A Place to Grow.” The background music was the first movement of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, or the Pastoral Symphony. It is playing now on our Public Radio station. Every time I hear it, I think of our four years in Iowa City.
It is amazing how, over the years, we remember only the pleasurable parts; and so, as Beethoven’s Sixth plays, the delightful memories are exactly what flash through my mind: the friends we studied with, my first job as a pediatric radiologist and the amazing colleagues who taught me how to be a pediatrician and a radiologist; taking trips on Sunday afternoons with our two boys to small towns, looking for antiques. One of our favorite towns was West Branch, the birthplace of Herbert Hoover.
I remember the first house we were able to buy with the help of my husband’s parents; the fresh food from Iowa farms; Sunday dinners at the University of Iowa; concerts at Hancher Auditorium; the city park just around the corner from our house on Park Road; the enormous elm tree in our backyard and the apple tree between our garage and the house; riding our bicycle for two with our two boys on it unprotected; visiting the Amana Colonies; weekends in Davenport on the Mississippi River; and brief trips to Chicago.
I hear the music, and I am immediately back in Iowa with old friends. Music transports us to new places, but perhaps more poignantly, takes us to places we have been. These are soul trips that bring us comfort and peace, if we will take the time to allow them back into our minds.
Music can be one of our best travel agents to times and places where we were loved and cared for, even more so during this pandemic when travel is limited. Music can lead us to a place of gratitude for opportunities, friends, and teachers, and many whom we forgot to thank at the time. But let’s both take time to do so this day.
Joanna. Joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/