Mar 13, 2008 - 22:38 PM PST
So... I was going to describe my music taste... and this is what popped out of my head, it was too long to fit in the debilitating square, but it was too real to delete. So her it is. I close my heavy eyes.
I like scratchy records that pop and crackle as they spin polished jet black vinyl, circle after circle, if you look too long a light dizziness creeps into your head and then seeps into your body, soon the shallow cracks blur together...this is when I pretend I am in the middle of it all. When Love and Peace were common words, daisies where stuck in braided hair, beads dangled, signs were protested and mary-jane was everyones best girlfriend. I pretend it was my first time listening to my brand new record purchased at a seedy record store, where the owner smokes mentholated cigarettes in the back alley with you, and offers you a summer job alphabetizing his collection. This is when I pretend I was part of a generation that embraced the word freedom and when I pretend the future is not even a one second worry, just a time when life would be lived in an old creaky house full of eclectic wooden wall hangings, velvet couches and doorway beads. College is not a one-way, only-way track to success, but is a word to describe wild nights frolicking on the pitch black beach with best friends who later become bridesmaids in your natural outdoor wedding to the man of your dreams. The sounds twirl and swirl deep into my head, tap tap tapping their beat into every crevice of my soul. The sound so rich, so powerful, so real, so mesmerizing it nearly saturates my brain, my everything. It can reach to places I never knew existed, it embraces places I never knew where in pain. It comforts my entire self. Music heals. Music soothes. Music loves unconditionally, no questions asked, no selfishness, no jealousy. It keeps me sane, it keeps me alive. Listening to the distant old words, a song of memory, of history of past and now present. I listen to the beautiful notes sashaying and dancing next to each other. This is when I pretend to enjoy myself, and I pretend to be happy. and then I open my eyes.
ps. photo by Joe Lencioni