People often ask me, "What was it like growing up in your house?" They ask me with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, as though I were a freak of nature for getting along so well with my parents. "I don't know," I tend to reply. "A lot like searching for dead Spaniards." My sarcastic response is never apparent enough, and I tend to leave the question dangling as they try to figure out what I meant by searching for dead Spaniards.
But, in all honesty, my life growing up was a dream. Yes, I had nights where I cried myself to sleep. And yes, I had withheld communication from members of my family. But I still made mistakes, and my parents always helped me to learn from them. When I refused to read the arbitrary book-of-the-week for school, they forced me to read it, stating that I would be better for it. When I got A's on report cards, they congratulated me, and when I didn't get A's, they challenged me. Growing up -- and still, now -- I don't think that my family is much different from any other family.
Save one. My mother.
A lover of art, she is a hater of music. I have never met anyone else who hates music as much as my mother does. The only music she listens to is a voice and a guitar -- and, even then, she doesn't like it. She simply tolerates it. My father, on the other hand, loves all music. Some country, some rock, some Indian chants, some jazz, some techno, some new age. When my mom would go grocery shopping, my dad would immediately crank up his stereo and rock out like a legend, like Mick Jagger or Jimi Hendrix. I would stand guard, waiting for my mom to return. When she had, it was my duty to run across the house and warn my father. My would eventually enter the house to my father and I quietly watching TV. I'm sure she had her suspicions, though.
I never understood how someone could hate music. Music is an art form, another way of expressing human emotions. Some songs are exact representations of how I'm feeling at a specific moment in time. "Calendar Girl" by Stars reflects my existential and fatalistic outlook on the world around me. "On My Own" from Les Miserables describes the numbness I feel when I love someone who doesn't even know I exist. "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey gives me a sense of hope and completion, a realization that there's always more than what meets the eye, that I'm never stuck. This is one of the greatest aspects of music... it connects us. I can listen to a song by Mozart, and the power of the strings will carry across time and into my life. By listening to music, I learn that I'm not alone.
But, more importantly, I think, music becomes a soundtrack to our lives. Sometimes the words and the tone of the music and the techical skill mean nothing. Sometimes a song comes out -- a popular song on the radio, a song introduced to you by your best friend, a song from a movie -- that is somehow embedded into a specific moment in your life. That song becomes as much of the memory as the event itself. I used to listen to Dashboard Confessional on long road trips, and now, whenever I hear one of their songs, my mind immediately reverts to a time when I was small enough to curl into a ball in the back of my parents' car, to a time when I would stick my head out the window with my tongue hanging down.
My favorite song -- my favorite
personal song -- is "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain. It came out on the radio when I was in 8th grade. I remember getting dressed for gym class, and the popular girls in schools started singing this song in the locker room. I stood to the side, frozen by their musical outburst, excited that I had something in common with these popular girls. I wanted to shout, "I love that song, too," but, instead, I stood on the side and watched with a smile. They didn't need to know that I loved that song. I just needed to know that we had some connection together, that I wasn't as unlike them as everyone said I was.
Hating music is like rejecting life. Music is everywhere, and it becomes a part of our lives. It can shape the relationship we have towards someone. Suddenly, "Fields of Gold" by Sting comes on in the background, and your best friend becomes your lover. Instantly, the painstaking process of painting a living room becomes a loving memory because "Callin' Baton Rouge" by Garth Brooks helped you pass the time. Just like the small of vanilla... just like the touch of cotton... just like the sound of someone's voice... music becomes a memory.
Music reminds us of the days when we would swim in sinkholes and we weren't afraid to jump off the high dive. The days of carnivals and cotton candy and hay rides. The days of making out in a park. The days of youth. The days of our life.
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
