Friday, March 29, 2013

On what becomes memories

My mom played Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond in the car a lot when I was little. I still know all the words to just about every Manilow song there is, and I can sing along to the entire soundtrack of The Jazz Singer. In some sad, sick way, I'm sort of proud of this.

I remember one rainy day in particular when I was about five - I think I'd just started kindergarten, so it was 1984. My mom drove a tan Camaro from the time I was four until I was ten. People often criticized and questioned her for driving a sports car when she had two small children. Her snappy retort was that it was the only time we'd actually fit in the back seat, and what did they expect - her to have a sports car when we were teenagers and could wreck it? (I love my mom's attitude sometimes.) I was sitting in the front seat of the Camaro feeling sorry for myself. I think it was late fall, because I can remember the leaves and the fact that I was wearing my purple corduroy overalls - I was scraping my fingers across the cords to make the fabric look like a grid instead of striped. We were listening to "Heartlight", a Neil Diamond song about ET ("Turn on your heartlight... in the middle of a young boy's dream... Don't wake me up too soon... Gonna take a ride across the moon... You and me...") I was mad because she wouldn't let me keep rewinding the tape to listen to that song over and over again - she made me wait through the whole rest of the tape. I was mad but knew better than to sass her about it, and I was sulking while I watched the wipers squeak back and forth across the windshield. I can still remember what it felt like to be that small, and what the windshield looked like from that low angle in the bucket seat. I can still remember the reds and oranges of the autumn leaves rolling by as we drove past them, on the way to somewhere that seemed very far away at the time.

And while some things still seem so far away... I love the way my memory calls them back to me when I need them.

It makes me wonder what my kids will remember. What am I doing that is inadvertently being etched into their memories? Elizabeth in particular has given me some clues that she seems to remember finer details in the same way that I do. Is it the '90s music that I tend to play in the car? Or maybe the purple and blue skirt that she insists on wearing whenever it's clean? Or (most likely) something that I'm not even considering? I'd like to think it's the good stuff in general, but I know better. I remember a lot of the bad days, and I'm sure she will too. And that's okay. Rose colored glasses, especially looking backwards, never did anyone any favors.

If I'm hoping though, I hope she remembers how much she loved Joan Osbourne's "One of Us," personally. She calls it "The Bus Song" -

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on the bus

Tryin' to make his way home?

I'll remember, even if she doesn't.

1 comment:

  1. This was beautiful.

    (We also had The Jazz Singer soundtrack. Also, lots of John Denver and James Taylor.)

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