There are Places I Remember

I awoke having a slight panic attack.  Another dream about the dead.  When I dream about the dead they are always still alive and just do not want to be part of my life.  This time it was my father.  I instinctively know to wake Meredith so I can have her calming words.

I guess I was so confused about everything that she felt the need to put me in the proper place and time.  Much the way I have to remind my Mom we are in Austin, Texas.

Meredith asked me who the vice president is.  My answers were : Mitt Romney, Al Gore and Tippy Hedren.

She coaxes an answer out of me, "Jooeee"

"BIDEN!"

She quietly gets up to make me some coffee.

Fully awake, I am more curious where I got Tippy Hedren from, than the fact that I could not get the answer right on the first, second, or third time.

I had to look her up on the internet.

The Birds.  She is also the mother to Melanie Griffith.  I did not know that.

Is this how my mom thinks all day long?  In a constant state of perturbation?  Almost like a kid with severe ADD, grasping at meanings and words.

Last night the three of us, Mer, Myself, and of course my mother, sat out front on the porch.  I had been humming  Beatles song, but for the life of me could not think of the lyrics.  I asked Meredith.  She looked it up and once the song began to play all three of us knew the lyrics completely.

This song is stuck in my head, but I now have the words to go along with the tune.

Everyone has deep seeded fears that we live with, some of us admit them and are aware of them, some of us try to pray the little demons away, some of us do not know they have taken over.

My deepest fear used to be, and still is to an extent, that I will go blind.  Photographs and faces mean so much to me.  I see things in a way I do not think many people do.

I am not boasting, I have simply been told on many occasions that people like the way I am able to see things, find beauty in the grotesque, or grotesque in the beauty.  My phone is always with me and I take pictures daily.

I keep a diary of one photograph for each day, and I have been doing this for over 4 years now.  Sometimes when I go back a few years to a certain date I can tell you exactly what that day was like, even if it is a photograph of a tree.

I can not, however, recall Vice Presidents names,  faces of people I went to high school with, or lyrics to a song until I hear it.

I vowed last night to play more music.

I have been making a musical playlist of songs that my Mom knows so she can sing along.  Most of the songs hold memories for me as well, as they incorporate my own childhood.  I am digging deeper in to the music of her youth, however so far her early 30's seem to be the ones she knows the best.

I am not sure I could think of important songs from my early 30's.  I would have to look it up, again.

Amid the flurry of my dream where I confronted my Father for still being alive, I was helping my friend paint her kitchen slate grey.  I did not have the heart to tell her that her chosen color was no longer in fashion.

Fashion, like memories, and Vice Presidents are so fleeting, so let her paint it whatever she wants.

Mom is not awake yet, and I am enjoying the respite of my repetitive days.  Will today be a good day or bad day?  Much of that depends on me, and I depend on Meredith.

If the day is bad or good, I do know that tonight we will sit out front and sing some songs that we all know the lyrics to once the chords begin.

I asked my youngest daughter if she has a song that she knows she will love for life.  She had to think for a moment and finally said, "Not really."  I told her I had found "my song" when I was 15 and I love it today as much as I did the first day I heard it.   I do not need a lyrical prompt, I just know it.  I have cried to it, laughed to it, mocked it, played it for other people, and made sure I always had it play within reach.

My family, meaning my mother, father and brothers have a song.  Let it Be.

My family, meaning myself and my children have a song, Aint no Mountain High Enough.

I have songs for each one of my children.

Meredith and I have many songs.

If I play music while writing, it influences what I write about, so usually I write to the sound of silence.  Literally.

I am not worried that I did not know the Vice President, I am not worried that I could not recall the lyrics to the song last night, I am not worried when I do not know where my keys are.  These things are the little annoyances we all live with.

I worry that I may enter a fugue state and not return.  I am fascinated that the word fugue also relates to music.

If you look it up, the first meaning usually is musically related, the second is a mental disorder (according to the DSMV).   But both are linked.  We are taken away by music and for a few brief moments, we wander around inside our heads recalling moments, creating moments, living.

The turn of phrase, "That is music to my ears." is used in the most common ways.

What about, "That is music to my soul."?

People speak in lyrics all the time and do not realize it, I will be listening and if they happen to say something that is part of a song, I sing the rest of the verse to myself.  If I am with Meredith I say it out loud, and she instinctively knows which word to pick and choose another song with that word, then I must find a song with that word.  This goes on until one of us runs out of songs.

I love doing music memory with my mother.  She may not recall my name, but she smiles and laughs when we sing Stand By Me as I dance the silly motions of Ben E. King.

She claps her hands when the notes finally find their way to that part of her brain that still lights up and screams, "I KNOW THIS!"

I do not play music all day, as I am afraid not everyone wants to hear the soundtrack to RENT a thousand times, or the horrible rap songs that just make me laugh.

I will try to make music as important to me as my photos.

(If I ever lose my eyes
If my colors all run dry
yes, if I ever lose my eyes
Ooh I won't have to cry no more.)