The Song Doesn't Remain the Same

One thing that I love to do is share music with my children. With activities all over the metro and transporting between houses, we have ample listening opportunities.

I still have a CD player and my kids love to pick out old CDs and listen to them. My 9 year old is probably the worlds youngest Eve 6 fanatic. We all love The Refreshments and Frank Turner. It takes the right day for Meatloaf. From the time they were each babies, I always made mix tapes and compilations for them. 

I love mix tapes. Yes they are still CDs and I still have a CD player in my car. Perhaps it is my affinity for High Fidelity but music and mix tapes are important to me. I make them for people important to me. Each year I try to make a road trip cd for my kids yearly family trips.  I make them to deal with my regular emotional roller coasters too. 

Because of this there are plenty of homemade CDs in the car cd visor holder (95 represent!) and some of them are favorites of my children. The other day, my son grabbed a cd and passed it up to me in the front. I always have veto power and usually I would have veto'd this cd. Yet for some reason, this time I decided to put it in. 

The spring and summer of 2010 was not a good time for me. The roller coaster went off the rails. I lost my job. I lost my significant other. I had to move back to my parents house. My entire house of cards life came tumbling down. At some point that summer either while wallowing or trying to recover, I created a mix tape and simply titled it "broken"

As the first track began, I started to regret putting it in. Some sensations, smells, songs hold too much memory for me and I can't handle them. I haven't been able to listen to a certain song by the Wallflowers since 2000. I have literally walked out of stores once I heard those familiar first cords. So I worried that maybe this cd would bring too much of that summer, of that period of broken back. And for a second it did. 

I skipped the first song at my son's request, and I was just about to push the eject button when something unexpected happened. As Dee Clark began to lament the Raindrops falling from his eyes. I heard my son softly singing along. 

It's weird that I know every word to a song from 1961 and there is no reason my son should know it. But then it hit me, all those car rides that summer. All those trips to the children's museum. The songs played and I sang along. Suddenly I remembered the joy of those moments. The pieces of that time that weren't broken. 

Together we sang through the sappy silly song. We sang together a snippet from Dr Horrible. We laughed. Something that had seemed broken wasn't. 

We picked up my daughter and all three of us sang through Dr Horrible again. Instead of the pain and memories that these songs used to hold, it was fun. 

We even made it through the song of that summer that I used to sing scream as I drove around my broken world: "Nothing Ever hurt like You" All three of us singing loudly and smiling and jiving along. A song that I didn't think I could ever sing with a smile. I was beaming. 

Something happened to those songs over the past 5 years. They didn't stay the static cauldrons of pain. It didn't hurt like it used to. Time, patience and growth  combined with knowledge to change them and me. It was an excellent reminder. 

The song doesn't remain the same. 

And that's ok. 

March Blues and My love of VHS.

In the past two decades, I have grown to hate March. March for me isn't good. Break ups happen in March. People die in March. Winter won't end in March. Especially this year. A foot of snow outside and the bit that does melt, ends up in the drainage disaster where the driveway meets the garage. I'm thinking of a investing in a kayak to get to the car.

I self medicate quite well. Whether that medication is time out, entertainment, beverage, time alone or whatever. I try to find some thing to minimize whatever the rough spot of the day is. But this month has been hard. When the winter blues have their grip on me this hard, I see negatives in every corner. I take every statement, look, off hand comment the wrong way and to heart. Being aware that I do it helps but it doesn't make it happen any less.

Weirdly enough, I have found one thing that has helped in some measure these past few weeks. Movies on VHS. Yep. Serious.

I feel about VHS like many feel about vinyl records. There is something familiar and nostalgic and tactile about them. Having to rewind. Adjusting the damn tracking so those lines disappear. The wonderfully outdated previews and commercials that you have to either sit through or fast forward through. I grew up with movies on VHS. I love them.

So recently, I went down to Half Price Books, went down to the clearance level and stocked up. I have my family's entire VHS collection in the basement. But it's all the way down the stairs. And part of the joy is finding things I wouldn't expect.

Like an unopened copy of The Hunt for Red October!!!!!!

Which of course, I haven't even considered opening. Possibly my favorite movie of all time, and it's never been touched?!?!

I also picked up Gone in 60 Seconds, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, Speed and High Fidelity. What a haul? Three of my favorite movie ever, the movie that introduced me to Sandra Bullock and one that is just pure popcorn fun with plenty of Nic Cage.

I've watched Gone four times already. Crusade twice and Speed once. High Fidelity always hits a bit close to home, so we'll wait for April on that one.

Revisiting these films, filled with memories and fun little surprises, like young Jeff Daniels in Speed, the impulse to say "Pop quiz, Hot shot". Super young and annoying Timothy Olyphant delivering lines like "Are you ok? Are you sure? Because you just went through a wall..." A future Doctor Who as the baddie in Gone, Christopher Eccleston. Alan Ruck, Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off being one of the bus passengers in Speed. All such good stuff.

Often memory lane for me is more nightmare on elm street type stuff. A place I don't let my mind go too often. But these movies, with the joy I remember from seeing them the first time. All the times I'd say to Matt Johnson in grade school, "Pop Quiz, hot shot" How I was convinced I'd marry Sandra Bullock. How Harrison Ford and Sean Connery together just seemed so right and how I imagined it was just like when I would go flea marketing with my father in Arkansas. Minus the hot blonde Nazi of course.

All those good things. Good thoughts. Maybe I'll make it through this March after all.