paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- songs and their memories Songs and Their Memories Alchera Project Number Seven OPTION NO. ONE: There are certain songs that, whenever we hear them, remind us of a certain time in our life. It's probably impossible to remember them all off the top of your head to respond to this option, but what are at least 3 songs that bring back a memory, and what is that memory? Feel free, or even encouraged, to go into details about these memories and what they mean to you. �Talk of the Town,� The Pretenders �Talk of the Town� by the Pretenders reminds me of riding to the eighth grade post-graduation canoe trip with the young Parisian French teacher in her convertible Fiat. The school rented two fifteen passenger vans and our small class was dividing between them. Just before I got in line, Madame came up behind me, grabbed my hand and asked me to ride with her. Although I knew going in to this venture that it meant a weekend of canoeing with the most spastic guy on the trip, I was more than willing to give up my teen hopes of getting kissed for five hours alone with the incredibly beautiful, chic and witty young French teacher. Madame was my favorite teacher and liked me quite a bit. I was a great dresser in the 8th grade � I saved up my lawn-mowing, baby-sitting, guitar stringing money for the French Vogue and worked to emulate what I saw on those pages. So while all the girls in my class had feathered hair, I had long, naturally curly hair. While people wore designer jeans and polo shirts, I wore jeans with wide legs, cotton shirts and silk scarves. Instead of layered tafeta,I wore a little black dress with fishnet hose and ankle boots with skull and cross bone clasps to the dance. On the road I asked her a bunch of questions about her life, growing up in Paris, going to the Sorbonne, French politics. One of my favorite things to do is to hear the story of someone�s life � just to spend several hours on it. And she told me about what she was like as a child, her relationship with her parents, her rebellious side, and how much a like she thought we were. The picture of two gals on the road is not complete without music. Madame had a lot of Blancmange and Telephone in her glove box and was incredibly impressed with my thorough knowledge of �The Day Before You Came.� But I cannot hear �Talk of the Town� without thinking about how she invited me to ride with her down and back on the canoe trip. She had Pretenders I and II in her glove box, which she just grabbed because she was thinking about the recent overdose of James Honeyman-Scott. And in my bag, I had a tape of Pretenders I and II, which I had grabbed for the same reason. Whenever I hear that song, I remember her in profile, driving, with all of her long, curly blonde hair flying around her face. The way she glanced at me, quickly, while talking to watch my expression. Her soft hands with little freckles shifting gears on the hills. That round-trip drive with Madame set off an unusual friendship. As it turned out, she was unhappily married and a bit lonely for her younger sister, who was not much older than me. And so she adopted me for a couple years � we went to French movies, hung out at the swimming pool, and drank iced tea on her patio. �I Fall to Pieces,� Patsy Cline When sung by Patsy Cline, �I Fall to Pieces� is my father�s favorite non-classical song. Because it reminds him of my mother. When they were married, they sang it in the car, sometimes. Whenever I hear it, I remember walking through soybean fields in the middle of the night in northern Nebraska with my father and his younger sister. We were cold and wet and tired, and had a long walk. The sky was overcast, but the stars still shone through. Instead of being little pinpoints in the sky, they were crystalline like salt on water color. My father�s wife has a twin sister who is married to a man who is as irritating as he is wealthy. In a way, they have ruined what little threads of family we ever had by making every occasion about them. They had a houseboat that they ran up and down the Missouri River. On the fourth of July, 1992, my father, his younger sister and I were stuck in a rain storm on this houseboat with about 18 other people. We didn�t really like anyone, especially not enough to be squished in the hot, humid cabin, so we sat on the deck of the boat, getting soaking wet. It occurred to us that we could swim ashore and walk back to my grandmother�s house. We thought we were about three miles from her farm. We set out, walking and talking, walking and walking. It was such a beautiful night, walking home, while everyone was stuck on a house boat, not adventurous enough to swim ashore and walk back soaking wet. There we were, running away together. From my father�s wife�s annoying family, from the past, from the present, from the world. I remember feeling so open underneath the big Midwestern sky. We soon found ourselves singing songs, about a mile or so after that, we found ourselves singing that song. The song I had not hear around my father for seventeen years. The Patsy Cline records had long been put away, perhaps even given away or sold. But there was something about the night, the stars, the chill in our bodies that led to that song. I hadn�t heard my father sing that song since I was a child. But, before I could stop myself I jumped right in on the verse my mother used to sing. I sang it perfectly, off the top of my head, really relaxed. As he sang �I Fall to Pieces� I looked over at him. I could not tell for sure but I think he was crying. And then I had tears in my eyes. And then my aunt gave a little sniffle. This was my mother�s song�. I knew that he still loved her, even seventeen years after she left. This knowing was different from the hope that many children of divorce wish their parents would get back together. It was more of a painful knowing, of being almost the same age as my parents when they divorced, of having done a few things in my own life that forever changed my life. There are some things, that once done, cannot be taken back � a passionate kiss, falling in love, falling out of love. �Let it Flow,� Jimmie Spheeris This song, whenever I hear it, reminds me of the night that my partner Quinn played it for me, for the first time. We had been dating and I decided to invite her over for dinner. I cooked my secret family recipe for Mousaka the night before and a chunk of the afternoon. I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom, inside and out, making certain that everything was perfect. Earlier that day, Quinn and I went record shopping in my favorite record store. She talked me into buying an old Jimmie Spheeris album. Seeing as how I was quite taken with her, I was more than willing, and incredibly curious, to give the album a listen. But, my mind being on the dinner date, I decided to wait to play the album. While I was in the kitchen, getting the finishing touches on dinner, opening the wine, Quinn asked if she could play a song for me. And she put on that song, her favorite song from the whole album. �Love me without thinking it over. Love me like the sun loves clover�.� I remember all sensation draining out of my body, like a giant plug had been pulled and all of my sense escaped. I peered around the corner, through the dining room and into the living room, where she stood, in a little light blue sundress, herhands folded in front of her, rocking her right foot ever so slightly. I could not take my eyes off of her, as I reached out in front of me, doing something with the stove, the dinner, the wine. And I found myself drawn into the other room. This was the answer to the question I had been wondering about us. 11:26 p.m. - 2002-08-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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