Music saved my life tonight

       It's hard to put in words what music has done for me over my lifetime. I know it has saved me on many occasions. From boredom, from inertia, from hating my life, from grief stricken lostness, from not wanting to live here anymore. Many songs over the years have played a huge part in my life during a specific time period or event. As I am sure it has for many people. Music is such a great equalizer. It connects us on a grand level to emotions otherwise not spoken, makes real what we are all hiding inside. We are all part of this world, this human condition, we share many of the same experiences and music is a profound way to connect to each other, not only musically when we hear it played on the radio or at a concert, but on a deeper soulful level. It tells me you feel what I feel, you get it.

My first memories of music are as a young girl at home listening to my parent's radio channel of choice - CFDR- "So long Marianne" by Leonard Cohen being a notable first song to impact me in a big way. I remember as a young girl of about 10 swinging on the swings in the local playground singing this song. I remember getting a white portable record player (the kind in vogue today) and listening to a gold Grand Funk Railroad  LP on it while dancing around the concrete floor in the basement. As a teenager when my father got an awesome record player sound system, and wasn't listening to the likes of Acker Bilk and Nana Mouskouri, I would play Elton John's greatest hits, this and the Eagles and Neil Diamond's Hot August Night  being the only solace in the sea of oldies music I had. And it was oh so enough. The hours and hours spent listening to these albums turned way up loud, listening to every lyric, every note of the instruments, reading the liner notes and staring at the album covers and sleeves. Hearing Jackson Brown's Pretender album smoking cigarettes and singing "Bright baby blues" to my imaginary lover (a few short years later to become my real one) in all my teenaged angst. I was so in love. I had found my island, with music everything was going to be okay.

When I was busy raising my children in the 1980's I took a hiatus from music, and it was the one and only time music was absent from my life. I only could afford maybe three cd's and they quickly wore out their welcome in my ears, and besides I was way too busy for music, I was barely keeping my head above water with 5 kids and going back to school. In the 1990's when things calmed a bit and I studied my nursing textbooks I started to listen to music again. To this day I have a hard time at work unless I am listening to music, it's when the creative juices can flow - when I can think.  I read with music in my ears, I walk, drive and cook with music in my ears, I post process my photography with music often naming them a line from the song that is on. I don't get people who don't get music, I feel sorry for people who don't have it in their life- who don't recognize its relevance.

I sometimes wonder do you (like me) have flashbulb moments in your life married to a song? Those magic moments in your life you will never forget as long as you live that are paired with a song or an album? When you hear it you are brought right back there to that time. I have more than a few of these and it is always a pleasant daydream to reminisce about them and see if new ones float to the surface. Memories like lying on citadel hill July 1st, 1980 listening to Matt Minglewood sing "can't you see",  just out of grade 12 and on the cusp of adulthood and freedom from all that was keeping me trapped and stifled in my tedious hum drum life. This album tucked into my suitcase as I escaped across the country a few short days later. In the days and weeks after my son died I listened to Bob Dylan's "precious angel" from Slow Train Coming relentlessly, over and over I rocked to the music to relieve the anguish. It did a little, just enough to stop from falling over the cliff. When my youngest daughter was a toddler and I was sliding into a severe post postpartum depression I listened to Paul Simon's Graceland- the upbeat riffs and rhythms of "diamonds on the soles of her shoes" keeping me and the baby happy enough swaying to it's beautiful sound. When my love was dying from fuck ca, I hastily made a playlist of our favorites for us to listen to on those final days.  My Mary sweetly singing to him "me and Bobby McGee" sounding exactly like Janice, him smiling at her. His final act of love towards me, standing from his death bed to dance with me to a verse from "Thank you" by Led Zeppelin.  Hearing Lucinda Williams sing "learning to live" as I biked -alone in my grief- with a group of friends, tears streaming down my face.  Musical flash bulb moments indeed.

I continue to make these memories for myself. I listen to a lot of new music, I still get elated when something grabs me and I will play it over and over connecting it to my life, my grief, my new way forward in this journey. There are rich new memories to make as I dance around my living room to a new song by The Felice Brothers:
"Throw your arms around me
Let's keep this quiet
Hear our hearts in the distance like cannon fire
See our breath in the window
in the siren light
Oh It's a wonderful Life"

How can you not believe it when you hear such magic?

I don't believe that memories such as these can ever be erased, they say the old folks with Alzheimer's can still remember the words and sing along to a song even though they can't recognize their spouses or children. I know if I am unlucky enough to get that affliction I will still have these memories, you only need to put the song on and it will all flood back in. Please do that for me, I will sing happily along to the words.  I will put a playlist with my will, play it for me when I am dying and when I am dead and gone I will be there with you remembering.