March 22
I am the only ray of light in this office, and that is NOT saying much.
People who really like music are aware of this phenomenon. You will listen to an artist, say, one of their CDs or tapes (if you're me: I didn't get a CD player until well into the 90's, and am still old fashioned enough to prefer tapes over CDs. They feel, I don't know, more substantial? They're more tossable? You can step on them with no real fear? In any case, I am late to the CD revolution) and you will like it so much you choose to listen to it over and over and over again. You listen to it so often and under so many circumstances and through situations, it actually becomes part of your emotional
lexicon. You are able to think back to what you were doing when you were listening to exactly--exactly that moment, that one, where the music changes just slightly, you will be able to recall, with amazing clarity, that this is the song you had your heart broken to, when your first and only college love walked out of your shared tiny, dirty, roachy apartment for good, saying, over his shoulder: "If we are really supposed to be together, I'll stop hating you for smothering me and come back."These songs you listen to and love are forever songs, you know? They will a year from the time of obsession, call to mind the exact same feelings they did when you were sitting there at your sticky kitchen table, staring at the door after your now gone boyfriend, unaware of the cigarette burning into your fingers, so intent on the lyrics or the rhythm or the something about this particular song which will always, somewhere in your mind, remind you of something you lost, and maybe, with more time, something you gained because of that loss.
Perhaps it is because I like to drive so much is the reason it seems that many of my big moments happen while I am behind the wheel. It is MY truck, I feel safe there, and so the epiphanies, the tears, the drama, the anger, the love, whatever and often occur as I fly down the interstate, alone. I've found that whatever is going on in my head has something to do with whatever song is up in my mp3 player (though late to that CD revolution, I've found that I much prefer skipping that step and going right to high tech) and this morning, this morning as I drove along I was just overcome by Bob Marley. It happens. It's probably happened to more people reading me right now than I could even imagine. Bob Marley. He calls to mind summer and weed and sand and at the exact same time sorrow and loss and broken dreams and promises. Bob Marley, to me is always about working through through that loss, rising above some cosmic disappointment to make something amazing. Almost all of his songs have this absolutely perfect quality to them, they are, each and every one, transcendent of time and place.
there's a natural mystic blowing through the air
if you listen carefully now you will hear
this could be the first trumpet, might as well be the last
many more will have to suffer
many more will have to die - don't ask me whythings are not the way they used to be
i won't tell you no lie
one and all have to face reality now
though i've tried to find the answer to all the questions they ask
though i know it's impossible to go living through the past
don't tell no liethere's a natural mystic blowing through the air
can't keep them down
if you listen carefully now you will hear