Music

I was driving home from Southampton the other day, listening to the local public radio station, when a song by The Doors started: "I see a red door and I want to paint it black..." etc.  I was suddenly surrounded by black lights, bell bottom jeans, long-haired guys with headbands and  girls in hip-huggers and embroidered denim shirts. Wow-I could almost smell the smoke and taste the pizza!

I'm always amazed at the way music can instantly transport us to another time and place in our memories and every detail comes back with such clarity - the sights, smells, and sounds from our memories.

It wasn't too long ago that I heard the first 12 bass notes of The Temptations "My Girl" and the same thing happened:  I saw myself lying on my bed in my parent's house, in my school clothes ( a mini skirt and tights with a favorite turtle neck sweater).  As I  listened to that song and I suddenly had all the melancholy thoughts af a 14-year-old girl, greiving over unrequited love for some 16-year-old boy - oh the angst of those years! For chubby teens like me, love is always unrequited and life seems so hopeless!

Music is an amazing door to our memory banks. Every sense can be tweaked by the simplist melody and only a few notes of a song from our past can send us off into a world of nostalgia. Music has the ability to move us emotionally like nothing else, from laughter to tears, anger to joy, everyplace along the scale of human feelings.

I'm so thrilled that I have a family that loves music - and can make it too. There's nothing in life quite as wonderful as making music and I consider it one of my most precious gifts. And I know when the day comes that I can no longer create it myself, there will be plenty of people in my circle who can do it for me. I find comfort in that!