Five Minute Friday: Song

Songs filled my home as a little girl. Lots of folk songs, lots of Peter, Paul, and Mary. The Beatles, Billy Joel, The Mammas and the Pappas, The Carpenters, John Denver. My Dad would play records for hours some nights, DJing to us, his willing audience. The chopsticks would come out and we would bang on the dining room table, drumming loudly, singing at the tops of our lungs, and truly loving the music.

I think that because of my Dad’s love of lyrics, of his exploration of new kinds of music that I have become someone who links lines of songs with places in time.

A friend could say a few simple words to me and I am transported to a single memory, lapping it in, breathing that moment.

There goes the baker with his tray like always, and I am in my brown VW with my best friend Tammy at age 20, driving down Highway 101 on our way back to our beloved UCSB.

Swing low, sweet chariot, my nose fills with the scent of the campfire, and I am surrounded by a camp full of children singing, staring at Uncle Max while crickets chirp.

Fill my cup again, as I am sitting on the heater vent, looking out the window over the deck and the woods beyond in my Holly Hobby night gown.

I remember when rock was young, and my Dad is dancing, singing, laughing with us in our living room, as Sara and I dance with my Mom.

You may be right, I may be crazy and my family is again singing at the top of their lungs as we drive towards Lake Tahoe for a family vacation. The same cassette has played for hours, but we never tire of it.

I will sing you a morning golden and new, while I hold my own baby in my arms and dance him around his nursery at 10 days old, at three o’clock in the morning as he cries.

Love is certain, love is kind, love is yours and love is mine, and Sean and I are holding each other close, swaying, dancing in the kitchen, like we like to do, weeping happy tears as we think of the life ahead of us with our sweet baby and our little house.