My taste in music’s like my taste in cuisine.
My favorite food’s a cheeseburger. WITH french fries. Bring me ranch dressing for dipping? Heaven.
I love risotto, boeuf bourguignon, any iteration of potato, omelettes, biscuits, and BUTTER.
I want it to be rich, satisfying, comforting, delicious, and I want it to be worth the time and effort to prepare it.
I want cooking it to be a joy.
This is why I subscribe to the Joy of French Cooking school of music making; I’ll have my ballad in a nice béchamel, please.
I could never pierce the meaning of 20th Century atonal musical (or anything that sought to deconstruct.)
While I empathize with the need to howl at the chasm in the early 20th Century, I still need cadences.
And if I’m going to work my ass off to learn a piece of music, it better fill my soul and make an audience go “yuuuummmm” and say, “My compliments to the chef.”
We have a phrase in our house — soul toll.
We bandy it liberally, apply to myriad situations, and even musicalize it.
It describes end-of-day emotional dysregulation (child and adult), traffic, shopping at Market Basket on a Saturday, and stoplight texters. (Of course, I’ve never done that.)
So, when it comes to life choices, the question becomes, “Is this worth the soul toll?”
Just because you have that block available on your calendar doesn’t mean you have adequate soul units to fuel that activity.
So I invite you to use this Q when you face choices.
Another way to ask this was something I heard Marie Forleo say: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
Caveat: not every lime in your life is going to yield ample zing to your G and T. Some you just have to squeeze, be glad you bought the Bombay Sapphire, and then take a nap.
But where you do have agency, check in with your soul tank, and get all Mary Oliver with yourself: What are you gonna do with that one wild and precious life?
Whatever you choose, I recommend butter.
