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| scribble #38 pleasant memories, musical ones |
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Pleasant Memories...Musical Ones
Last week, while taking a few short trips around town to complete some rather mundane errands, I found myself on a number of fabulous journeys triggered by the music coming through the speakers of my car radio.
Being catapulted back in time able to recall vivid details along with the original feelings that accompanied them is an enormous gift, a spectacular treat.
This free ride, so to speak, is not unusual. It happens all the time whenever an old song triggers a precious memory. However, what is even more amazing is the fact that I am also able to recite all the lyrics. It must be similar to an out of body experience, when the words miraculously begin to spill out of my mouth. More often than not, I find myself wondering, “whoa baby, how in the world am I able to remember everything as if it was yesterday, even though I might not have heard that particular song since I was 3 years old!” How Much is that Doggy in the Window, is a case in point. I sang that entire song to my pups, all the way home from the groomers one day. My mother taught it to me during breakfast in our tiny 4th floor walkup apartment when I was just a tot. I am able to see the big red radio sitting on top of the icebox and visualize my mom feeding the baby in the high chair. After each mouth full, she’d go back and gather the extra food that stayed on the outside of his lips, fill the spoon again and go back in for a second helping without having to return to the jar. It was like getting 2 scoops for the price of one.
Music creates memories and more often than not, those memories are pleasant and each one is embedded somewhere in our cortex easily retrieved without the slightest effort on our part. It’s almost as if it is an involuntary response to the melody. A specific region in our brain is on hand strictly to store these wonderful flashbacks in time.
Monday my favorite childhood movie star, Doris Day, was singing Que Sera Sera. Her music cannonballed my 10-year-old self back to our basement in Evergreen Park, the one with the giant bar that spread from one end to the other. Occasionally, I would climb up on a stool and stand on top of it, with my spatula microphone in hand and rather dramatically sing along pretending I was a famous actress. I put my heart and soul into every solo performance. “I asked my mother, what will I be, will I be pretty, will I be rich, here’s what she said to me,…
All those questions I asked myself, “What will I be? “Who will I be, when I grow up?” I always had such hope for my future but I knew I had to be patient and just wait and see!
Tuesday I was Washing that Man Right Out of My Hair, mentally back in my bedroom, where I spent a great deal of time, all alone, belting out musicals that I had memorized from my fathers extensive record collection.
The guy in the car next to me witnessed a middle aged women, windows rolled down, singing show tunes at the top of her lungs, completely oblivious to the outside world. I momentarily turned in his direction, and for a second found myself back in real time, long enough to see him chuckling. I gave him a big smile, tooted my horn then eagerly traveled back to my purple and white room with the big canopy bed.
I dropped off a package at UPS and when I turned the key in the ignition, I was setting up card chairs and making lemonade in my backyard gearing up for my rendition of Tony Bennett’s, I Left My Heart in San Francisco. I wrote, directed, choreographed and of course starred in every single one of our weekly outdoor summer recitals using sheets for curtains on our makeshift stage area held on the cement patio.
While heading to the cleaners, and listening to THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN, I was lulled back to tween club, a Friday night get together for 7th and 8th graders and saw myself dancing to my first slow dance. My partner was Tom Carmody, and I was wearing my new canary yellow angora sweater and matching pleated skirt. My heart was beating out of my chest and I worried he might be able to hear it.
After unloading all the dirty clothes, I began reliving my freshman year of high school singing “When you’re a jet you’re a jet all the way, from your first cigarette, till your last dying day.” Yes, I was a Jet in the Brother Rice Senior Class Play. We practiced 5 to 6 days a week for months. My partners name was Howie and the poor guy had to lift and toss me around above his head and between his legs for quite a number of grueling dance routines. When I hear anything from West Side Story I am not only instantly able to sing all the songs without skipping a beat, I will recite every line of dialogue with or without an audience, as well.
While filling up my tank, Disco music hustled me back to the colorful dance floors made of neon lights located on Rush and Division Streets in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast during my glorious 20 something years. We had the stamina back in those days to dance every dance all night long, and stay out until the bars closed at 4 am, followed by breakfast at bagel nosh where we would gather to rehash the evening.
I will Survive by Gloria Gaynor has never failed to thrust me out of a breakup funk while at the same time provide a sufficient amount of self confidence to assure me I would not only survive, I would once again, someday, thrive! All these years later, that song still energizes me.
St Elmo’s Fire reminds me of the day I got married, one of the happiest of my life. The popular instrumental provides the sound track to my wedding video. Whenever I hear it, I am a bride again, floating down the aisle with my father, asking him to go slower, he was walking way too fast and I wanted to milk every moment, and savor each step. I see myself saying my vows, smiling for countless pictures, dancing with my handsome new husband, listening to and giving toasts and feeling on top of the world.
The entertaining tunes in the Wee Sing Series and Kids Songs have the power to fling me into that special window of time during my child rearing years when the kids were young, innocent, and sweet. In those days, they actually wanted to hang out with me. We would sit in the family room and watch endless musical videos, over and over again and never tire of them. Each one of us would instantly jump to our feet, singing and dancing in the family room not the least bit self-conscious of how we might have looked prancing around in funny costumes in the middle of the day. It was pure bliss.
Music allows me to revisit some of the happiest moments of my life. When I hop in the car, I’m never quite sure where I might find myself, yet without a doubt, I always enjoy a very pleasant ride.
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Posted by roe on 2009-07-24 01:15:39 | Rating: | Views: 246
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