jukeboxdiver

I had quite possibly the most magically fantastically real weekend of my entire life.

Have you ever been sitting in a room, and — randomly —- you remember a song you used to love?

Let me define “love” here. When I love a song, I milk that song for all its worth. I drive that song to the movies, I buy that song popcorn AND milk duds, and I make sure that song gets home by curfew. I walk that sweet, sweet little song to its front door, and— oh, don’t think that!!  I’m more than respectful. I give it a kiss on the cheek, the last word, and a sense of security. Listening to it on repeat, I try my hardest to become intimate with every beautiful moment, every rest, every swell—I ring every drop of that song’s soul into my own.

That all being said— something, something legitimate and tangible at the time— be it a stuffed animal, or an old scrap of notebook paper— brings that song from the doldrums of your memory and leads it to the very forefront of your mind. The only problem is that you can’t wrap your brain around it. You can’t even REALLY remember the chorus– just a ghostly snippet of a lyric that flits like a gnat around your nose.

Rain… rain… rain down… with? Fuck. How does that song go? With you? With her… Rain down with… damnit! Whatever.

And you have a lot of stuff to do that day, so, naturally, you forget it. At least, you try to. You go about your chores, but that damn song plagues you. It follows you to the grocery store—RRRain… Rain… NO. STOP!— pinches you as you pour detergent in the laundry room— Rain down on… us? Him? Her. Damnit, whatever!!!!-— breathes down your neck at the ATM, slides its cold fingers around your ankles at the gas station.

This builds. It builds and builds, and when you get a moment, you finally give in. Booting up Google, you search for something completely vague like “rain down lyrics” and cross your fingers that you’ll stumble upon what you’re looking for.

After a bit of fumbling, you find it. H T T P colon slash slash www dot YouTube dot com, you find the video with the most views, buckle down on your couch or at your desk, and prepare.

As the first notes kick in, it’s like eating Ben and Jerry’s Crème Brûlée ice cream (if you don’t know what that’s like… acquire it immediately and indulge). Feelings absolutely rush over you. Yes. Yes, that’s it– I remember this. Yes! The song brings time gone by and NOW to a chaotic collision—you are, for those three or four or maybe even five or six minutes, experiencing past selves in the present.

You’re remember-living (livemembering?), and you’re like, fuck yes. I forgot, but I love this song. I FUCKING LOVE THIS SONG. This song is a PART of me. It has been. It is. It will be.

Then you start to think about how you’ve changed since the last time you heard the song, and how much that song, though silently waiting in the mess that is your iTunes library, has been with you the entire time. You revisit the song, milk it again, this time with a grounded knowledge that you and the song have got something wonderful going—for life. And it’s really a beautiful thing.

This weekend was my song.  Is it possible that this key really is the key to the treasures of darkness? All that matters now is that I’m certainly soaring.

More later on updates surrounding my burgeoning interest in ethnobotany, the word “platitudes”, my infatuation with the Brown family and my foray into the world of Reiki.

I love you.

M