We drove towards the beach, evening sunset giving way to gray skies around us, the radio blaring as we sang along. "Breakfast At Tiffany's" was the song, and I sang it with such joy and abandon in that moment. He's not around anymore, but every time I hear the song, my mind reaches for that instance of pure joy again. For a long time, I let the poison of how things ended spoil the memory, but I try not to let it anymore.
You learn to see things differently when you live most of your life thinking you don't have much longer to live. Every struggle and failure and triumph seems to take on deeper meaning, sometimes interpreted so inaccurately by a mind too caught up in preparing for the end to truly remain present for what comes in the middle. Even an Oreo knows that the stuff in the middle is the sweetest, so what's wrong with me?
Yesterday I listened to music from my iPod, something I rarely do. I even scrolled to "songs" and had it shuffle all of them. With nearly every song, I could identify a person or a place or a time that brought the melodies to my world. Ben Harper made me think of Joey and riding in the car with no AC during the summertime with the radio turned up loud. Uriah Heep made me think of the old high school pal who never outgrew being a hippy and a pot-head. U2, well, some memories aren't all that great, so I skipped most of those songs. Then there was Johnny Cash, who made me think of my dad and all the Saturday evenings we watched Hee Haw together, and especially the one episode where Johnny rode up on a horse singing a song about a traveling preacher. My daddy said, "There's the man in black!" And I never forgot that one, brief, fleeting, seemingly meaningless second of time. I am frozen there, and so is Johnny Cash and my dad, all of us sharing in a moment of joy. Lady Gaga made me remember when Sylia was in middle school and thought herself "emo-ish." The Mamas and The Papas brought back an afternoon in the car with my girls, trying to harmonize "California Dreamin'" together. Fiona Apple, driving around in Greer with Tony Viola, who was the only man I ever knew who liked Fiona, singing "Parting Gift," while he listened close to see if I could hit all the low notes.
Sometimes the smells and tastes and sounds around me trigger memories so deeply ingrained into who I am that I rarely take notice of them anymore. So often as an adult, I have felt like someone watching a parade go by, never really getting to march with it; but perhaps what I fail to accept is that the parade has run through me. Every character who wore a mask or danced a jig or ran around in a crazy costume left something of themselves with me. The parade composed me, with its music and laughter and even tears, it brought joy to my doorstep.
Spoiled relationships and sad endings took my joy for too long. As I listened to "Breakfast At Tiffany's" yesterday morning while I shopped for blouses, I decided to let go of the bitterness for a while, and instead try to hold that place of joy where a sweet memory exists. I tried to remind myself that some people live their whole lives without a moment like that one, so instead of clenching my fists because all of life didn't give me the kind of joy that moment gave me, I should perhaps just feel grateful it happened. That's just what I did, I stood there remembering, smiling to myself, thanking the Universe that even when life seats us beside a steaming pile of poo in the passenger seat of the Toyota Echo, it also loves us enough to create a moment we can cling to--a moment before we realized we were riding in a car with a steaming pile of poo.
With so much change disrupting my world, and with the realization that dialysis won't work forever--eventually I will need that transplant, I get fairly gloomy these days. Change is difficult for everyone, or at least that's what we tell ourselves when we are struggling. The truth is, change isn't always hard, not all change. Sometimes we lay out the welcome mats and throw parties for Change. So I suppose the changes that come with suffering leave us feeling alone and in need of some fellow human to understand our internal turmoils.
Human beings were made to reach forward. From birth, we begin to reach milestones and throughout life, we keep reaching. We reach for knowledge, for experience, for love and family and a chance to redefine home to our own broods. We reach for empty nests and retirement parties, then long vacations and slow, steady years of just enjoying all the things we accomplished in the middle; but I feel un-tethered, for the reaching also keeps us anchored to this world, and I feel time running out. So many things I longed for in life rest proud and full inside my chest. My babies, my grandchildren, the friendships and even failed attempts at love, they all bear witness to my being. I hope that somewhere, someday, I will pop up in someone's mind as they listen to a song and recall a moment or two of pure joy, shared with me.
The Parade forever marches on.
