Column: Jeremy Corey-Gruenes, Paths to Peace

In my youth I engaged in a lot of silly rituals. I went through a Michael Jackson phase in fifth grade that included the practice of never walking past our kitchen stove’s reflective door without pivoting and moonwalking for five or six feet.

Many of my little rituals have included music: listening to a certain album to get excited before a big game or event, singing a mantra to myself as I run, choosing just the right Bob Dylan song for my newborn daughters to hear upon arriving home from the hospital.

Silly or not, I’ve invested countless hours into rituals like these, perhaps none more time consuming or meticulous as listening to a new album for the first time.

My first-time listen ritual began in fifth grade with Van Halen’s album “1984.”

Almost instinctively I dimmed the lights, inserted the cassette tape, tweaked my boom box’s treble and bass controls, and lay down with liner notes in hand to read the lyrics to every song as I listened in solitude, before emerging much later to share my assessment.

I recently gave a first-time listen to a new album from one of my favorite musicians, Mason Jennings, a Minneapolis-based singer and songwriter. My wife, Jenny, and I have been fans for about eight years now, and — as cheesy as it sounds — we feel an almost mystical connection to him and his songs. Some are romantic, some border on spiritual, but many just reflect a shared sensibility. We have a “relationship” of sorts with him. We joke that Mason’s our soul mate, the musical and spiritual link that binds us.

So when Mason released his latest album, “Minnesota,” our anticipation was intense.

Jenny was working on the evening of the release, so I downloaded the album on iTunes and waited for her to come home before playing it. When she arrived we sat next to my computer, hit play, and chatted about our days while we listened. The moment was supposed to beautiful, but what happened was incredibly awkward.

We didn’t like it.

Two or three of the tracks, we decided, had potential, but the others had definitely missed the mark. We said things like, “maybe it will grow on us,” and “this one’s not too bad,” and even “what was he thinking?”

It hurt, especially when Jenny said, “Maybe Mason’s really not our soul mate.”

We had a lot of thinking to do. I went to bed and fell asleep to silence.

Arriving to school extra early the next day, I played the album for the second time on my new classroom stereo system. I closed the door, dimmed the lights, and pressed play. Almost immediately I began warming to the new songs. Over my lunch and prep periods, I played it again, liking them even more. I sent Jenny this message: “It’s better today. I think we might be OK.”

Ultimately, I’ve grown to love the album. It’s not necessarily Mason’s best, but it’s really very good.

Why had something so initially unpalatable, so disappointing, suddenly become so good overnight? Audio quality, for one. A first-time listen should always come from the best speakers available, but there was more.

I had skipped my ritual.

I think my first-time listen ritual might be more than just a silly routine. It’s more about preparation. The songs I had listened to that first night were the same songs I listened to the next day, but somehow I heard them differently. I was more prepared for appreciation.

When I was 20 years old I studied in Greece and Italy for a semester. I’d taken a world mythology course in high school that turned me on to Greek and Roman mythology. I’d read most of the big Greek tragedies and couldn’t wait to actually visit the places I’d explored in my imagination.

On one weekend trip to mount Delphi, I stood in awe before the ruins of the legendary oracle, while a few of my fellow students groused about the heat and second-guessed whether they’d gotten a good enough deal on souvenirs they’d purchased in Athens the day before. Were they not looking at the same magnificent creation I was? Why was my experience so different from theirs?

We weren’t equally prepared.

While I appear the wise, cultured one in the Delphi example, there are countless ways in which I’m not. I don’t appreciate, for example, the beauty of calculus in the way my math teacher friends do.

I’ve no doubt the beauty exists, but I stopped engaging in the necessary rituals of higher math around the age of 19. I’m no longer prepared to appreciate it. There was a time when I was, but in this case my memory is as inadequate as my computer speakers for transmitting the message.

I wonder, as my daughters go off to school, or as I ask my students to write thoughtful and original compositions, have I helped prepare them enough for success? Have I helped them listen through the right speakers? Have I fostered the right habits to prepare them to really hear what they need to hear and do what they need to do?

I hope so.

Not all forms of preparation are ritualistic, and not all rituals lead to preparation. Some aren’t even healthy. But mindful preparation — for ourselves and for those we influence — is something I aspire to promote because more than just my “relationship” with Mason Jennings may depend on it.

Jeremy Corey-Gruenes teaches at Albert Lea High School. He lives in Albert Lea with his wife and two young daughters and can be reached at jcorey2@gmail.com.