Love, Through My Ears

By Natalie Buttress

When I hear George Benson’s “Give me the Night”, I am instantly in a night journey home, in the back seat of my dad’s car, with the windows open and the wind snapping my hair across my face. I am 9 years old. I am sun-kissed and tired after a weekend of skiing on the Vaal River. Contentment. All is right with my world.

When I hear Glen Miller’s “In the Mood”, I am sitting in my grandparents’ lounge. My Grandpa was a drummer and music filled their home, exposing me, a 1971 kid, to a song penned in the 1930s. I hear my Gramps saying: Who’s my favourite granddaughter? And My Gran saying- “What’s cooking, good looking?” What enormous love there is in my heart for these two people. Gone, but in sound, not forgotten.

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When I hear Robert Miles’ “Children”, I am moved by a deep sentimentality where tears well up. They come from a joy that is almost painful, because that song- an instrumental track- played the night I first met my husband. Twenty-two years in, and with our two beautiful children, he is my soulmate. My B’Sheirt. My Karma. And that piece of music connects me to the size of my emotions for this one magnificent spirit. My forever.

To hear. To feel through my hearing. To reach into the past and connect it with my now. What a gift.