There is no central theme as yet to this blog. I talk about the act of writing and how I've procrastinated for way too long and how I am working to make it really happen. I also talk about what I want from my life. But it also contains my thoughts on very random topics from new and different things I did today to memories from when I was a kid. It's a surprise in every post!
Today I'm going even further back in my memories. This one goes back to my first "teen rebellion" attempts. Now I know that a John Denver song seems to be a weird choice for a rebellion song but I can explain. It wasn't the controversy about the "high" in Rocky Mountain High. It wasn't that I thought it meant getting high. I was a pretty sheltered kid in a tiny Baptist town in Mississippi and at this point in time, I didn't even know what "high" was! No, it was something far more basic (and ridiculous now looking back). My father hated John Denver. He didn't like his voice, he criticized how he looked and dressed, simply put there was nothing good about John in his eyes. Sort of how earlier parents felt about the Beatles I guess. It didn't help matters that he and I were, umm, not close. We'll go with that. Mom on the other hand liked John Denver's simple music. We both enjoyed the acoustic guitar and John's gentle voice. Granted he wasn't the strongest singer to walk the earth, but you could feel his love for his music when he sang. So, to the rebellion part. Mom bought me the album despite his complaints. My mom and I each had bedrooms across the hall from each other. Down the hall and down about 3 steps were my brother's bedroom and my father's room. Yes, there rooms were on opposite ends of the hall and opposite sides of the house. That's another story completely though. This layout meant that my bedroom shared a wall with my father's bedroom. Guess where I put my record player? That's right, right up against the shared wall. Whenever I was mad or annoyed by something he did, I locked my door and on went John Denver at the highest volume I dared. Glad my kids never tried this, I can just imagine all the ICP lyrics assaulting my ears! I can still hear his voice yelling to "turn that damn thing off" (always ignored) or complaining to Mom who would explain that I wasn't hurting anything. It was also the album I would escape into when they were fighting one of their frequent fights. I would turn it on, lean back comfortably on my bed, close my eyes and pretend that I too was enjoying a campfire in the Rockies.
Music just makes everything better. Feeling down and tired, try something loud and upbeat. I bet you start feeling better by the chorus. Nervous and jittery? How about a soothing acoustic guitar ballad to calm you right down. If you can't sleep because your mind is going a mile a minute and even counting sheep makes you think of another thing undone on your to do list, try something peaceful like pan flutes or soft piano music played over the sounds of nature. As long as it isn't something your brain is completely familiar with (so it doesn't stay hyped up trying to anticipate words or rhythms) you should be able to drift right off to sleep. It even lowers our blood pressure! Altering our moods and body functions is only part of the magic of music. The most amazing part of music to me is it lets me time travel. Not in the Dr. Who way of course, but certain songs can trigger memories so detailed that for a brief time I feel I am right there again. And it isn't just me and I'm not crazy. There is scientific proof of this: "What seems to happen is that a piece of familiar music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head." said Petr Janata, a cognitive neuroscientist at University of California, Davis. "It calls back memories of a particular person or place, and you might all of a sudden see that person's face in your mind's eye." http://www.livescience.com/5327-music-memory-connection-brain.htmlIf you'd like to read more about this phenomenon. Anyway, an example.
While driving around yesterday with my daughter, I put a Billy Idol CD into the stereo. I hadn't listened to it for a while. When it reached this song, "Mony, Mony", I was, for a moment, younger than my daughter! I was 19 years old and out visiting with my friend Marsha, it was one of the last couple of times we saw each other. We were at the All Ranks Club at Camp Pendleton in California. We're out there on the dance floor dancing to this song and having fun when all of a sudden we hear this loud yell. It was almost a battle cry, maybe it was his version of a "Rebel Yell", who knows. We look over just in time to see a guy running, leap-frogging over several people and landing on the dance floor right in front of us. He and Marsha spent the rest of the evening together, in fact, I believe she married him. I've lost touch with Marsha and her family. I do think of her often and wonder how her life turned out in these last OMG! 30 years. But this song and a few other memories always take me back to a time when we thought we owned the world.
