RHYTHM IN MY BONES....

By Olivene Godfrey

Music has always played an important role in my life. And, often a song takes me back to another time, another place.
A little of every place and every person goes with us in the building of happier times. It's the combination of all we have lived and learned that builds character and teaches us the way of life.

Perhaps because music is important to me I tend to think in musical terms. A beautiful time, a moment of enchantment, I remember as a symphony. Actually, there is an underlying rhythm to all of living. It's been said that if you want to feel alive you have to keep rhythm in your body. I think of rhythm as the gentle, easy flow of life.

We usually think of rhythm as keeping time to music. And, wherever there is life, there is that rhythm that has everything on the move. There is harmony in finding one's own pace. When we hit a sour note, we have one of those days when everything goes wrong.

In my writing, I strive for a certain form of rhythm. I don't know how to explain it. But, when I read a manuscript, I can "hear" a sour note, a jarring sound, if sentences don't have that easy flow I think of as rhythm. When I read a manuscript and find a sentence or a paragraph that seems to be suspended-not in tune with the words that came before and after it-- I hear that sour note.

Now, we are all individuals. And some writers, especially in music, play in the minor key. That is their style. Then some writers use what I call "staccato" sentences--detached, dis-connected, or abrupt. That is their style.

I guess I am corny, as I like to hear a "melody" -- musical sounds in agreeable succession or arrangements. But, aren't some of the sweetest things in life corny? That may be why some of us love those things.

I like this bit of "musical" philosophy by Ella Wheeler Wilcox: "Our lives are songs; God writes the words, and we set them to music at pleasure; and the song grows glad, or sweet or sad,
As we choose to fashion the measure."

See you next time.