Pandora’s name inspires paranoia about the dangers of curiosity and how poking your nose where it doesn’t belong can unwittingly unleash all sorts of demons. At least that’s the lesson we all learned from Greek mythology about the first woman on earth whose curiosity lead her to open a secret box and unleash all sorts of horrors on the people of earth.
Unfortunately, we all have a tendency to forget a few things about the myth such as that at the very bottom of Pandora’s box was hope. That’s a lesson we can all hold tight to in these turbulent times for as long as we keep our hope alive things will get better. The other lesson we forget is that Pandora’s very name means all gifted as she was endowed with many talents including beauty and the the gift of music.
Pandora and her musical gift inspired the Music Genome Project to name their internet site Pandora. Pandora is truly a magickal mystery tour through the land of music. By plugging in your favorite song, you can create your very own Internet music channel that plays music similar to your favorites. The algorithms and computer science behind the site are way above my head, but at a very basic level plug in the song you like and you’ll get a lot more songs like it.
So what does Pandora have to do with my sixty days of bliss? Well, like may couples hubby and I don’t always have time to sit down and talk about the things that really matter. I gravitate to my laptop and he gravitates to the TV and even though we’re in the same room, we could be on different planets as much as we interact. Hopefully, Pandora is going to help me change that.
The other night, I was upstairs and hubby was downstairs and he came up and realized I was listening to some really good Blues. He sat down and we started having a conversation about life, about the kids, about music, and about a lot of other stuff. Some of it mattered and some of it didn’t, but the bottom line was that Pandora helped open up a box of conversation and that really mattered. I even changed the station from the Blues I learned to love in Memphis to a classic rock station we both enjoyed.
It was so relaxing to close the lid on the laptop and pay attention to what my husband was really saying without the the distraction of the TV, the latest thriller I was reading, or the ever present work. I’m hoping that now that we’ve opened Pandora’s blissful box, we’ll remember to open it a little more often and rejoice in the music and conversation.
Cairn by Cairn 