Musical memories…
As always, a number of different thoughts and topics for a blog have bounced around my head this week. As I start writing this (yesterday - Saturday), I’m on a break from my weekend chores. Yes, I’m retired and maybe I don’t need weekend lists anymore but I still have them. Without this becoming my blog let me say I’m starting a serious writing routine on Monday and since I intend to treat it like a job, I have weekend chores. So, here it is Saturday and I’m tidying, cleaning and scrubbing around the house. My preference is always to pick upbeat music and blast it from the stereo while I work. I dance and sing as I check items off the chore list. A song came on that took me back to when life was easier, or at least easier in my memories. It’s led me to the musings that follow. Come with me as I enjoy a trip down memory lane.
When I was a kid I was madly in love. I always thought we would grow up and get married. When I look back I have to chuckle at myself. I was so young and naive. I don’t know how as children we make the connection to “growing up and getting married” but somehow I had. It would just happen. Even as I write this I’m laughing at myself. But how sweet it felt back then. The song that I’ve always related to the boy and those feelings was playing and transported me back in time. What a treat to allow my mind to go back decades to my childhood as I continued cleaning. The memory still brings a smile to my face.
Another song and I was taken on another ride to another time. It was about ten years ago and I was at the performer’s concert. I remember being on my feet, dancing and singing along. I remember the arena was packed and the audience’s voices rising to the rafters as everyone sang along. Such joy. Such celebration. I’ve often thought that it must be addicting for performers to have a reaction like that to their work on stage.
Another song and another memory stop. This time it was university. The dance floor at our student nightclub was packed. It was one of my first shifts as waitstaff. I’d worked in our kitchen and seen the waitstaff as they moved about with their trays of drinks. I saw how they carried their trays and made their way around people and tables. As the dancers moved to a great song I decided the easiest way to navigate around the dance floor and people crowding the edge of it was to lift my tray above my head. What a mistake! I stunk of tequila for the rest of the night as tray and shot glasses came crashing down after my elbow was bumped. I was not coordinated enough to pull it off. At the time I’m sure I was horrified and embarrassed but with the intervening years I’m able to look back and smile. I’m sure I thought I’d never live it down and now I’m probably the only person who remembers.
It’s Sunday now and I’m finishing up my blog to get it published. I have music playing in the background and some of the songs send me down memory lane. Others don’t take me to a specific spot on the lane. Instead they evoke feelings of comfort and happiness. I was thinking that if someone had been peering in my windows yesterday they would have seen a woman dancing around the kitchen, living room and hallway sweeping and dusting with a huge smile on her face. To be honest, I think it’s a great way to clean.
Memory lane doesn’t have to be a particular time or place. It can be the remembrance of feelings. Music often takes me travelling along the lane. I don’t stew in the memories, I just let them flow over and through me. Sometimes they wrap me like a warm hug and sometimes the energy of the music takes me back to the excitement of the moment. I relish each of those moments and welcome them in. I can’t imagine living without music. Maybe it’s because of the lane. New music and artists add new stops to the lane and those of the past bring soothing comfort. Memories like these are precious. I love that my trips down memory lane are so often triggered by music.
An early morning visitor.