April 13th, 1986. This was the day I started my first job. I had turned 16 two weeks prior, and couldn’t wait to begin my retail journey at The Limited in Columbia Mall. I felt so cool there. Bad ass. I was the only girl in my class who worked at The Mall. I may have been bullied at school, but at The Limited, I was Queen. I felt like I had just stepped out of a John Hughes film, taking my breaks at the arcade and Schianos Pizza. Stopping by The Merry-Go-Round to try on leather jackets and feather earrings. It was a fun time. My hair was big, I had a car, I had a job, and now…I had a bunch of older friends to show me the ways of the world. One night after I had been working for a couple of years, in 1987, a song played over the speakers at work. The Limited headquarters sent music on tapes that we had to play. Mostly, the music would annoy me because the tapes were short and after a shift, I would have heard every song numerous times. But on this particular night a song played that I wanted to hear over and over and over again. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. I was in the Outback Red section, folding lightweight cotton sweaters, when the voice of an angel entered my soul via my ears and brain. I was shook. We didn’t have Shazam back then to tell us what this song was, and none of us knew the name that possessed that unique voice. It was really new, not even on the radio yet. I was obsessed. After a week, I finally went to the record store and sang the damn song for the guy working there, until we figured out that the band was 10,000 Maniacs and the song ‘What’s the Matter Here’ from their brand new album In My Tribe. I bought the cassette and couldn’t wait to get into my little two-toned red Oldsmobile and play it from beginning to end. Every song was better than the last and then…holy shit…I got to the last song. This song dug deep into my soul and I swear to you, in that moment, G_d spoke directly to me. The song was ‘Verdi Cries’. I felt like I knew the two subjects in the song. I felt as if I had lived that life in another time. Both lives. It just spoke to me. It is about solitude. It is about an old man. It is about a young girl. It is about memory, and it has haunted me since that day in 1988.

‘Memory’ is something that I am sorting through during these Covid Times. I have come to terms with the undeniable fact that I am an emotional hoarder. Metaphorically speaking, that is. Meaning, I hold onto every single memory. Even the trash. Memories are stuffed into every crevice of my being, taking up space, leaving little room for anything new. Nostalgia is my shadow, and constant companion. But when one lives in the past, always tripping over memories, the present moment is disrupted and distorted. Good times. Yeah. Welcome to me.

I have spent significant time, trying to figure out ways to live in the present moment. To live without regret or longing for the past, as well as, living without fear of the future. I have wasted so much time hitting the rewind button, just like I did with my 10,000 Maniacs cassette. Always hitting rewind replay, rewind replay, rewind replay, until the tape finally snapped. (Kids today will never know that pain). But I was just like that tape. I have spent so much time rewinding and trying to replay, that I finally snapped. Over and over again. I have done this with relationships that ended that I thought deserved a second chance – rewind replay snap. I have done this with friendships that ended…rewind replay snap. Jobs. People. Places. Things. I cant snap anymore, y’all. I don’t have another snap left in me. My tape has to keep playing, or I can hit pause. Or even stop. I have to keep moving forward, or just be still. Rewinding only when necessary. I mean, I cant expect to drive around town in reverse and not get into a wreck! Reverse just to back out of a parking space, right? That’s another metaphor.

The older I get the more aware I am of my memories. It’s such a cruel joke, this whole aging process. The older we get, the more memories we have. I know…Duh. The older we get, the more we want to go back and appreciate what we were too young to appreciate the first time around. The older we get, the more we understand how truly fucked up we really are. So, I am staying in the moment these days. I don’t want to snap anymore and I don’t want to waste anymore time wondering ‘what if?’. Especially, when I already know, deep down, the answer. The answer is almost always, a resounding “no”.

Finding a balance between healthy reflection and living in the present moment has been my biggest obstacle. However, over the past 10 months, I feel I have conquered at least some of this challenge. I have found, for instance, that music serves as a healthy way to reflect while still remaining present. I have been playing my guitar and singing. A lot. I have found songs from my past that can take me to a place of intense nostalgia, but by playing them myself, it creates something brand new. And therein lies that elusive balance.

Today, while floating in my classy above ground Covid pool, my music on shuffle, and getting my tan on, THE.SONG.PLAYED.!!!!!! Verdi Cries!!!! I had forgotten about this song!!! I haven’t heard it in forever!!!!! Y’all!!!!Immediately, I was taken to that “soul place’ where I was in high school, driving around in my Oldsmobile, singing full voice, and crying quiet tears of recognition. Then the tears became present day. Tears of familiarity. Tears of knowledge. Knowledge you only gain from having loved and lost time and time again. I decided to try something new with this memory that brought up a trillion other memories. I decided to learn how to play ‘Verdi Cries’ on my guitar and sing it my damn self. And guess what? I did. And I created a brand new memory. A new memory that just happened to have been conceived 32 years ago.

So yeah….today was a good day.

‘Holidays must end as you know. All is memory taken home with me: The opera, the stolen sea, the sand drawing, the verging sea, all years ago”

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