How Music Can Speak To Us

For many years now I've loved Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of an essay into the spoken word song, "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen." The essay by Mary Schmich is a hypothetical commencement speech and was written in 1997. Luhrmann's song came out in 1999. When I taught middle schoolers I used the song as part of a multi-day lesson in which they read the text (not knowing what it was) and highlighted, commented, and reacted to what they read. Then I played the song for them and they reacted again to how the audio interpretation impacted their understanding of and reaction to the piece. And finally I shared the video version to which they reacted a final time. The point of the lesson was how we react differently to text, sound, and visuals, and how we use audio and visual interpretations to manipulate or alter the meaning of text. 

It was a successful lesson and I enjoyed doing it every year. I've been listening to this song (filled with nuggets of advice) for nearly 20 years. When I first heard it I WAS the youth which it addresses at the start. Now I am the 40-something person that is still determining what she wants to do with her life. Oh--I have my profession and it's one that I love--but what to do with the years of hours outside my work is what is yet TBD. 

My choice to move to Mongolia and live life in a big city (the biggest city to date for me--a city of 1.4M) has allowed me to do or practice a number of things referenced in the essay/song. Please indulge me while I annotate the lyrics below with some thoughts or reflections (Lyrics--in Courier Font and Left Justified--copied from this website) My comments are in Verdana font and Right Justified. I confess this post is a bit more self indulgent than many. 
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Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97:

Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now

My time in Mongolia HAS been a meandering experience. 

I came here thinking I'd stay forever, 

now I know differently. 

As my mother once advised me--

when considering a big life decision,

 imagine what is the worst that could happen.

 If you can live with the worst,

 then you should go for it.

 And so that's what I did.

 I moved for Love, and I knew the Love could end

 or fail or be not what I thought.

 And the worst that could happen....
Heartbreak, tears, anger and hurt came to pass.

BUT,         

 I'm picking myself up, dusting myself off, and moving on. 
Because that's who I am and what I do.

And so I will soon meander some more. 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; or never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine

Wow, 20 years ago I was 24 years old and embarking on my first marriage. Now I'm wrapping up my third. Yep. Truth.

Youth is wasted on the young. But so it goes.

I think I have a lot of possibility before me.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing Bubblegum. 
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that Never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday 

Worry is attention on the future.

Regret is attention on the past.

Let go of both and be in the Now.

This is what I am working to embrace and be and do.

Do one thing every day that scares you

Difficult to do daily.

But I do endeavor to push past my fears.

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours

This is why I had to leave. 

He was reckless with my heart.

Floss

As my father and I learned in the summer of 2014,

travel in Mongolia REQUIRES floss!!

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself

When I joined the Army in 1991 the motto was,

"Be all you can be." 

It's the best motto the Army has ever had.

It's what is being said here in the song.
It's what I endeavor to be.

Remember the compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your Life. 
The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t

There are many ways to interpret this passage.

I know what I want to do with my professional life.

I'm doing it. I love it. 

But all the rest of my life....is in the process of being created.

I tell my high school students that life is 
a constant work in progress 
and more than anything I want them to know
 it's OKAY to change your mind. 
In any situation, in any moment.

Get plenty of calcium

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t
Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t
Maybe you’ll divorce at 40
Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary
Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance; so are everybody else’s

I've married. 
For a year. For 14 years. For 3 years (left after 2).
And divorced every time.

I never had a longing for children of my own.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own

I do all I can to keep it healthy and in good working condition.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room

Queen Night Club

I definitely want more dancing in my life.

While in Mongolia my favorite dancing has happened here,

Queen Night Club in Darkhan.

Strange that I had to head to a smaller town to have fun dancing.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them

Do not read beauty magazines; they will only make you feel ugly

Get to know your parents; you never know when they’ll be gone for good

Ironically my move halfway around the world
 brought me closer to both of my parents. 
I'm thankful for that and for the 
technology that makes the connections possible. 

Be nice to your siblings; 
they are your best link to your past and the
People most likely to stick with you in the future

My love affair with a Mongolian man opened up my heart
 in new ways--
ways that made it possible for me to connect 
with my older sister and 
gave us a deeper friendship than we'd known before. 
That is a gift!

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you Should hold on

I feel fortunate to make good friends everywhere I go.

And we do hold on to one another.

Nothing beats patio drinks with good friends

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard

Living in Ulaanbaatar gave me the "city life" 
experience I've always wished for. 
I get around by bus and taxi. 
I can walk almost anywhere I want to go. 
I have LOVED not needing a car and all it requires.
My next city has a population of over 4M!!!

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft

Travel

Moving to Mongolia was one kind of relocation.

Because of that move the world of international education
was opened up to me. 
I suppose it always was, 
I did not know about it. 
Now I get to work abroad and travel. 
Stay tuned to see where I'll be going in the next year.
There are a NUMBER of things in the works!! 

Accept certain inalienable truths: 
prices will rise, politicians will philander, 
you too will get old-- 
and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, 
politicians were noble 
and children respected their elders

Respect your elders

Don’t expect anyone else to support you

And don't allow others to assume
 it is YOUR job to support them either!

Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85

I always remember this lyric when I think

about dying my hair. I have some grays coming in

but I haven't dyed my hair in years now. 

Not sure what to do. Sometimes I want to change it,

sometimes I'm really proud of being natural.

Mind still changing on this topic!!

Be careful whose advice you buy, 
but be patient with those who supply it
Advice is a form of nostalgia. 
Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth

But trust me on the sunscreen

UB Sunset

This is just one song that speaks to me. Of course there are many more. Thanks for indulging me this post. It was fun to listen to the song on repeat and in a way to "talk back to it."