October 20th, 2009
Summer 2003. I’m still friends with the people I thought I’d be friends with forever. I haven’t met the one I would promise to love forever. One semester of college is behind me. I drum for a pretty good band, and even though no one in the band aspires to take it anywhere, it’s still a good experience. I’m damn talented, and now I’m learning to keep my ego in check. This band might not go anywhere, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll meet people and start another band someday.
Some friends of mine drove up from Indiana. I used to go down there whenever I could so I could jam with them in their living room. We had chemistry, especially when their cousin was still in the area, but even without him we could rock. I had once dreamed of moving down there; I’d fucked that up, but maybe one day things could be normal again.
We’re on our way up to a music festival with one of my local friends. I’ve played a few shows with his band while they search for a full-time bassist. Their music is okay, not entirely my thing, so I’m not making a bid for the role. At my core, despite my current activities, I’m a guitarist.
It’s dim in the building where they take our money and give us bracelets. I haven’t heard of most of the bands on the program, so I start to wander the three stages, listening, watching, taking everything in. My friends and I split up, reunite, split up in a neat summary of our lives.
They aren’t with me when the band takes the stage. The first note captures me, weaves its way through my mind. After a moment I realize the song is in 5/4 — the elitist in me rejoices! They have done what other, more prominent bands have failed to do, which is to capture an odd time signature without hobbling it. The song leaps like a damn gazelle. I must show my friends! I hurry from the sonic utopia to save my friends’ souls.
Though my friends aren’t as impressed, and eventually return to the tight-shirted synth player, I resume my post on the floor, a rapt disciple of song.
This is it. This is what I must do.
Autumn 2009. I went shop-hopping with my wife the other day. At one store, I caught a glimpse of a CD in the clearance section. 30% off. The fourth effort of a band I had seen at a music festival. I loved their first, but somehow they had slipped through the cracks of school, work, engagement and marriage. I showed the album to my wife and told her I might get it, then set it down. They were from another time, another life.
My computer is dying. It doesn’t run games too well, but lately that hasn’t bothered me so much. I’ve been fiddling with the guitar a little — nothing serious — and the old machine can’t handle playing things back without any hiccups.
She came home with the album I had rejected. It made me smile; it made me sad that a band I had once loved so fervently needed my wife’s aid to get into my house.
It is aural bliss.
She loves it, too. I decide to show her the first one, the one that gripped me all those years ago… but we’re driving somewhere new and unfamiliar, so neither of us is paying attention. I dim the volume and focus on the road.
When I return to work, I skip back to track 1 and turn the volume up.
It’s not as polished as the new one, obviously done on a smaller budget, but it hasn’t changed. The songs, preserved on a plastic disc, echo through the years, reviving and filling a part of me I thought was lost forever. For a moment I’m nineteen again, whispering, This is it. This is what I must do.
Summer 2003. I’m still friends with the people I thought I’d be friends with forever. I haven’t met the one I would promise to love forever. One semester of college is behind me. I drum for a pretty good band, and even though no one in the band aspires to take it anywhere, it’s still a good experience. I’m damn talented, and now I’m learning to keep my ego in check. This band might not go anywhere, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll meet people and start another band someday.
Some friends of mine drove up from Indiana. I used to go down there whenever I could so I could jam with them in their living room. We had chemistry, especially when their cousin was still in the area, but even without him we could rock. I had once dreamed of moving down there; I’d fucked that up, but maybe one day things could be normal again.
We’re on our way up to a music festival with one of my local friends. I’ve played a few shows with his band while they search for a full-time bassist. Their music is okay, not entirely my thing, so I’m not making a bid for the role. At my core, despite my current activities, I’m a guitarist.
It’s dim in the building where they take our money and give us bracelets. I haven’t heard of most of the bands on the program, so I start to wander the three stages, listening, watching, taking everything in. My friends and I split up, reunite, split up in a neat summary of our lives.
They aren’t with me when the band takes the stage. The first note captures me, weaves its way through my mind. After a moment I realize the song is in 5/4 — the elitist in me rejoices! They have done what other, more prominent bands have failed to do, which is to capture an odd time signature without hobbling it. The song leaps like a damn gazelle. I must show my friends! I hurry from the sonic utopia to save my friends’ souls.
Though my friends aren’t as impressed, and eventually return to the tight-shirted synth player, I resume my post on the floor, a rapt disciple of song.
This is it. This is what I must do.
Autumn 2009. I went shop-hopping with my wife the other day. At one store, I caught a glimpse of a CD in the clearance section. 30% off. The fourth effort of a band I had seen at a music festival. I loved their first, but somehow they had slipped through the cracks of school, work, engagement and marriage. I showed the album to my wife and told her I might get it, then set it down. They were from another time, another life.
My computer is dying. It doesn’t run games too well, but lately that hasn’t bothered me so much. I’ve been fiddling with the guitar a little — nothing serious — and the old machine can’t handle playing things back without any hiccups.
She came home with the album I had rejected. It made me smile; it made me sad that a band I had once loved so fervently needed my wife’s aid to get into my house.
It is aural bliss.
She loves it, too. I decide to show her the first one, the one that gripped me all those years ago… but we’re driving somewhere new and unfamiliar, so neither of us is paying attention. I dim the volume and focus on the road.
When I return to work, I skip back to track 1 and turn the volume up.
It’s not as polished as the new one, obviously done on a smaller budget, but it hasn’t changed. The songs, preserved on a plastic disc, echo through the years, reviving and filling a part of me I thought was lost forever. For a moment I’m nineteen again, whispering, This is it. This is what I must do.
June 19th, 2008
My great grandparents lived in a mobile home park off some busy highway or another. There was a small playground across from their house — I remember there was a slide and some swings, and maybe one of those things that you spin around on until the earth rotates in reverse. A short walk in the opposite direction led to a pool. If I sit still and close my eyes, I can feel the water caress my face, taste the chlorine on my hands as I give in to the nailbiting urge, already deeply rooted in my six year old psyche. When I climb out, the cement is both rough and slippery beneath my feet, and if I move too quickly, someone cautions me not to run. It’s hard — I really want to jump back in.
I can’t remember the layout of the pool.
Traffic roared like a home game arena. It wasn’t noticeable from the pool, but we could see the cars from the playground. The smell of baking blacktop was ever-present in the summer, like the noise of the traffic. It was comforting. It was a part of who my great grandparents were.
At some point they moved out of the park and into a house with my aunt. I was getting older, starting to see them less. My aunt got married and moved away; my great grandparents moved into an assisted living facility. I occasionally joined my mom when she went to see them, but even at sixteen it’s hard to understand the impermanence of life. They died while I was studying music in Memphis. It was very difficult to hurt, which left me feeling guilty. The people I got most excited to see as a child were gone, and I couldn’t even cry at the news.
I work in an office on some busy highway or another. As I step outside to walk to my car, the smell of baking blacktop and the roar of traffic hit me. I stop and close my eyes; fragments of memories swirl around me, whispering, laughing. A lump forms in my throat and I run to my car and nearly drop my keys as I’m getting in. I scroll through the list of contacts I never call until I reach my wife’s name. She picks up; my breathing evens out. I let her know I’m on my way.
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