Music as Memory

There isn't one song, I suppose, in my music library (and there are thousands) that don't evoke a time, a place, and a person. Is there anything more noun-ish, more reminiscent, more historical than music? I would have to say no.

Tonight I am making mixes - for the wedding - for arrival cocktails, for just after the ceremony, for dinner, for dancing - and yes, there are specific moods for each. I listen to each song and I remember things, I feel places and there is just nothing like music to infiltrate your head and take you to a certain place where you abide for just a past moment like it was right now.

I listen to "No Woman No Cry" by Bob Marley and I'm with Sarah K sitting on a beach in Baja 10 years ago, sunburned and 21 and tequilaed and singing along with Bill, our Green Tortoise bus driver on the guitar, toes in the sand and butts on logs and realizing that we know all the words (how do we know all the words?!?), and suddenly I'm in Mexico with no cares except when I can next take a real shower.

I listen to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle and I'm in Grandma and Grandpa's pool in Pico Rivera with cousin Dori and sister Jamie. It's the 80's, we are young, we are choreographing dances to this song in the pool during a heatwave - Dori, the tallest, her wide shoulders shielding us, stands in the front, Jamie and I, smaller, pop out from the sides behind her. Grandpa comes home and we make him watch our dance from the deep end, we do it again just for ourselves in front of the big living room mirror before Dori goes out with her teenage friends for the night.

I listen to "In Da Club" by 50 Cent and I'm with Kari in her Audi and we're feeling our flow - DUN DUH - after a shitty week of work as young magazine editors. We are in control now - she's weaving in and out of L.A. traffic like she does so cooly and we're on way somewhere to dance - bopping our heads, waving our hands, singing along, ecstatic to be ourselves and out. She parallels and we pull out makeup bags, talk about what's going to happen and apply lipstick in the flip down mirrors, switch glosses, close the mirrors, roll up the windows, zip up the makeup bags and open the doors in the balmy southern California night feeling tall and confident.

I listen to "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison and I think about Roz, a million years ago in high school, both of us singing along with her dad on the deck as he played guitar. We'd improvise, both of us with brown eyes, adding in some extra ad libs that I still, to this day, think are supposed to be part of the song.

I listen to "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tiffany and it's me and Matt in the garage, him on the guitar just after band practice, and I'm maybe trying to jam along on the keys, and he says come to the mike and so I do, both of us singing into it and inches apart singing and smiling like idiots because we are, trying to sing while concentrating on the chord progression "A, E, D, A..." But we play and smile and sing and I stick out my tongue and laugh because I mess up a lot and he never messes up - he always led with music, still does.

I listen to "Walk It Out" by Outkast and I'm at Dodger Stadium with Radiah. It's a hot July night and we're playing the mortal enemies - Barry Bond's Giants - and the Dodgers pitching bullpen walk him because he's due to score his 500th homerun, I believe, and so he gets walked over and over. Every time he gets walked Radiah and I do the cabbage patch, thrusting out our fists in a wide circle while intoning, "Now walk it out, now walk it out, westside walk it out, southside walk it out..." We are surrounded by Giant fans and they hate us, but they won't look at us, and somehow it makes us more strong, louder, rapping dancing just behind their quiet heads at the top of our lungs.

I listen to "Suerte (Whenever, Wherever") by Shakira and I'm back in college working at the UCSF urology department with the office girls who loved Shakira, who had kids too young, who left the price tags on their clothes so they could return them after they wore them to work, who were extremely wonderfully sassy and so much fun. We had lunch every day and they were deep into the politics of the office and I just wanted everyone to get along and I mediated a lot, and there was one woman with whom I went home one weekend to the Mission and we made empanadas with her mother and aunts in their church kitchen and they were delicious and I'm embarrassed that I can't remember her name. I hope she's happy, she was precious, she said smoothie like "smooty" - "Sarah - do you want to get a smooty?"

I listen to "Go Missing" by Matt Sheehy, and christ, of anything, this is one precise memory of many. There is Radiah on one side of me, there is Kari on the other side of me, and we are three in a row in a Los Angeles club, their long strong arms are around my neck on each side, I feel small for once, surrounded in the middle, and nothing should be the matter on this night with friends, but it is. Matt performs to an audience, and we are part of that, and this is the one time where he says, "this is for Sarah" in front of everyone and I cry when he sings there's a hole in the ocean that wants to swallow me and when my body convulses from this cry I put my hand over my mouth just as he sings we're past the point where nothing is the matter and my two big strong girlfriends just dive in, they absolutely jump into the water when they see how I'm drowning, both sides of my face get hurriedly kissed, my hands get pulled into laps. both sides of my hair get lovingly stroked and I'm just squished in between a lot of big love. That night - we all four came home together, chili burgers and 2am on the back deck - we fell asleep at some point and there was nothing like knowing that three of your bests are merely feet away and will be there in the morning.

I listen to "Quiet Dog" by Mos Def and I think about Jim driving and me in the passenger seat reaching over to turn it up, me beating pretend drums and Jim going from road stare to head bob to lip purse to hand shake to both of us singing along, "Maintain the rock and you don't don't stop the rock..." neither of us can stay still or stop the rock.

I listen to "Chan Chan" by Buena Vista Social Club, and I think about my dad and I coming together in a kitchen making something for dinner, but most importantly able to discuss a music that he loves and to which I was introduced via viewing a documentary by one of my favorite directors, Wim Wenders. And there was a peace, then, over Cuban melodies - I don't think we could trust each other until we could find something in common.

All of these songs, and every single other one I've chosen but not mentioned, evokes a memory so clear and sensual that I can see it, I can smell the beach, the club, the car, the garage, the kitchen. I am tied to the past with these tunes, with the people that I cherish and I thank god for music, without it I would not love so well because I would not be so moved to remember what they preciously mean to me.