"For You"

This song is just lovely. Very lush, very romantic. Ok, I know I said 'ick' on the love songs, but this somehow. . . as important as text is to me, if the words aren't so bad that they distract me with their stupidity, a lovely melody makes everything ok, more than ok.

And my problem here is this: some things are just too personal to write here, too difficult to articulate without naming names and explaining more than is appropriate, for me, in this space. I can say that REM's 'Stand' reminds me of what fun it was to live with my friend Edith, but I'm not going to tell you what the Goo Goo Doll's 'Iris' calls to mind, though it still does, years later. I do wish I could remember the song that was 'our song' the year I lived with my oldest friend, Erica, almost fifteen years ago, especially after the one day recently we heard it in the fabric store and I felt like I was in a time machine, right back in that Polish Hill apartment, cats and ferrets everywhere. On the other hand, I can't seem to forget, but I can sure refuse to go to the place where 'You Light Up My Life' lives. I love all the classic wedding songs, including 'The Chicken Dance' and 'Shout', because they do recall celebrating happy events, and polkas make me remember dancing with my grandfather as well, a bonus. Seeing music live helps this process of song equals memory wave, which is part of the draw of hearing live music, for me. I bet I can remember almost every song that I've heard a band do live. Ah, the vision of my mother singing along with Queen's 'We Will Rock You': really beautiful, and not just because I also remember that she helped us bootleg the concert that night. The other day I was surprised when a reggae song made me think of my brother's wedding in St. John, since that was just this past summer. I think you don't always know when something's going to stick, when the smell or sound or taste of something will someday and someday again pull you somewhere else entirely.

The worst or best thing about all of this is you also don't know when you'll be hit by one of these triggering tunes (or smells, or tastes) years later. In the car, in the mall, at a party, in the grocery store, doing dishes: at some point, they will come. And for me, at least, I either have to run, or wallow. Sorry, I can't always share what 'it' is, these boundaries are hard won. And there is no in between for the things that touch my heart deeply.