Category Archives: Music

Sensation Preservation: My Favorite Sights, Sounds, Smells, Tastes, & Touches

IMG_4025“When we think of the past it’s the beautiful things we pick out.–Margaret Atwood

Hello friend,

Matt Nathanson is one of my favorite musicians. Last year, he put out a song called “Headphones” that managed to get a bit of radio play. I liked the song at first, until I saw the video. Then, I LOVED it! The video is basically a documentary montage of a trip Matt took to an impoverished town in Peru to give hearing aids to people who had either never had hearing or who had lost it. As the song rises to its climax, the video’s story reaches the point where the long-deaf people, who had lined up for hours for this moment—and certainly dreamed about it for years—begin to hear. The reactions are absolutely priceless! As they are overwhelmed with tears, amazement, gratitude, and wide wonder, I cannot turn my own teary eyes away. Each time I watch the video, I wonder about how special that moment is for those people, how the voices of Matt and the others must sound like audio magic to them, and how the image must sear itself into their hearts and minds forever. I also look at it from Matt’s perspective, but in the visual sense rather than the audio. I have to think that the look on those beautiful faces (see the photo) as they heard their first sounds—the absolutely palpable ignition of their souls—must have touched his heart in such a profound way that the image of them etched itself there forever as well.

At the start of the video’s story, in a voiceover that fascinates me, as Matt is explaining how much he loves music, he says, “I’d gladly go blind or mute, anything rather than go deaf. I’d be completely lost. I think that for most people, keeping their sight would be their first choice. But what a thought! I shudder at the very idea of losing any of my senses. I am reading a book right now called All the Light We Cannot See—I highly recommend it—in which the main character is a teenage girl who became blind as a young child. I am completely captivated by every scene she is in and try to imagine what it must be like to be in her shoes, to have seen the world once but now living totally in the dark. What images are etched in her memory? What would be the first thing she would want to see if her vision was restored? And what about Matt Nathanson and his hearing? What sounds would he miss the most? Music? Voices? The wind in the trees? What is so etched into his soul that he could never forget? What would it mean to reconnect with them?

Of course, I use Matt Nathanson, the deaf people of Peru, and Marie-Laure LeBlanc from my book as my examples, but who I am really thinking about is myself? What are the images—the sights, the sounds, even the tastes, smells, and touches–that I would miss the most? Which ones could I never forget? Would I pine for images I have never known outside of my imagination, or would it be the sensations that are the foundation of my everyday world? What makes this earthly life so great, anyway? The sights and sounds matter. So do the tastes and the smells and the touches. It turns out that our senses are the pathway to our entire experience of the world.

Like with most everything in my world since my kids were my born, the sensations I associate with my joy for life are so much tied to those two little munchkins. I think of my son’s cat-who-ate-the-canary smile and the look in his eyes when he has a joke up his sleeve. I cannot imagine a life without those magical, playful eyes that light me up every time I see them.

It is in my moments of being literally in the dark that I appreciate my sense of touch. The ones that seem to glue me together come after my daughter and I have said goodnight to my son and return to her bed. She lays her head on my arm and snuggles in close as she tells me stories and asks me questions. Gradually the talking comes to an end as she begins to give way to sleep. It absolutely is the food my soul lives upon, and I cannot imagine not being able to feel her against me, the curls of her hair tickling the side of my face.

There are also images from my past that seem to be seared into my heart and mind, and while I would love to experience them again, even if I went the rest of my lifetime without feeling them, I would still hold them as fresh visions in my mind, ones I wish never to forget. Two come quickly to mind. The first is a place called Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park (which itself is a tremendous feast for the senses that I give the highest recommendation). One day I hiked up to this crystal clear, glassy mountain lake and trudged through the brush to the far shore where no one would come near. I plopped myself down with my journal and seemed to have all I would ever need. I was surrounded almost entirely by steep rock faces with small waterfalls cascading down, except of course the absolutely crystalline water in front of me. Alone I sat with my heart completely open, and both the place and the visual completely soaked into me. I pray that Alzheimer’s does not take that image away from me any time soon.

Another fine day in another fine place came about 10 years ago in my beloved Italy. The town of Siena holds my heart anyway, but that particular late afternoon in Il Campo, the giant town square, my wife and I—relative newlyweds at the time—were just sitting on the ground on the beautiful, burnt orange bricks after a full day, enjoying some gelato and people-watching. In a playful mood, we pulled out our clunky camera—this was pre-smartphone days—and started taking selfies, giggling as we snuggled our faces up close to squeeze into the shot, then laughing at the results. We were so much at ease and so much in love. It was nothing but an ordinary afternoon in a magnificent place, but my memory of the sights, the tastes, the smells, and the feelings seems utterly extraordinary. If I could not see anymore, I would still have that day in my mind’s eye.

It is easy to take these senses for granted, but they are absolutely amazing gifts. I think of my son’s eyes, my daughter’s snuggles, the taste of gelato, the smell of the pine forest in Montana, and the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the beach. How could these be replaced if my senses were lost? Would my memory of them be enough? I honestly cannot say. What I do know is that doing this exercise has made me smile at the thought of so many beautiful sensations and the memories they have carved into my mind. It has made me more grateful for these priceless gifts. It has swept me away to my happiest places, and I have truly loved every step of the journey.

How about you? What are the sensations that live in you for the long-term? Open up your journal and take a trip through your most treasured memories of touches, tastes, smells, sights, and sounds. What are your favorite examples of each sense? What emotions are tied to them? Do the different senses seem to conjure a different set of emotions? What senses seem to create the strongest emotions in you? Are those senses also the most valuable to you? Which sense would you most willingly give up? Least willingly? If you lost one or more, do you think your memory would be strong enough to keep the feeling alive? If today you lost your hearing for a long period of time—say, five years—and then gained it back, what would you want to hear first? Same for sight: what would you want to see first? Touch? Smell? Taste? Armed with the answers to all of these questions, what are you going to take the time to appreciate in your day today? What sensations will you seek out? Which will you try to commit to memory? Leave me a reply and let me know: What images do you savor?

 Take it all in,

William

P.S. If this post resonates with you, I would greatly appreciate it if you would share it with your family and friends via social media or old-fashioned word-of-mouth. My hope is to positively impact as many people as possible every week, and I need your help to do that. Thanks in advance for your support.

The Soundtrack of My Life

DSC_0029“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” –Plato

Hello friend,

This morning at my gym class, the instructor’s super-techno dance mix included a mash-up of Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ classic “I Love Rock ‘n Roll”. After getting over my initial disgust that they had butchered this all-time rock anthem with a computer-generated dance beat, I was instantly swept back in time to July 19, 1982. I was nine years old, and my parents—in a moment of highly questionable judgment—let me, my siblings, and my cousins go unsupervised to a rock concert at the North Dakota State Fair. It was none other than Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, and “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” had just blown up. I was mesmerized by the whole experience, but especially hearing her sing that song live. It was a night etched in my mind forever.

That is how it so often is with the signature moments in our lives: a song is attached. So, when we think back on our history, the telling of our lives emerges from our minds like a movie, complete with a soundtrack. The music playing while we hung out with our friends, stayed up late, kissed the girl, got dumped by the girl, won the game, rebelled, danced, roadtripped, celebrated, contemplated, got married, rocked the baby, and on and on. For most of us, the music tells the story for us. Play the soundtrack, and we could “set adrift on memory bliss.”

My life is no different. When I look through my piles of CDs or through my iPod, it is like my life is flashing in front of my eyes. So, in roughly chronological order, here is the Soundtrack of My Life:

  1. “Another One Bites The Dust”—Queen. This one starts the album, because I remember listening to the 45—yes, a record—of this in my room over and over with my brothers and neighbors. The other Queen anthems—“We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You”—absolutely belong on this playlist as well, but I will lump them into this one slot so I can sneak other songs in (IT IS SO HARD TO KEEP THIS ALBUM SHORT!!!)
  2. “Take It On The Run”—REO Speedwagon. This is another vinyl memory. I didn’t own it, but I remember staying up late at my (older) cousins’ cabin when I was a kid listening to this over and over, dancing around on the beds and feeling way older than my 8 years.
  3. “You May Be Right”—Billy Joel. This is my transition to 8-track. I could not get enough of the sound of that shattering glass followed immediately by the revved-up opening bars of this song to start the “Glass Houses” album. Instant adrenaline!
  4. “Greased Lightning”—Danny Zuko (John Travolta) & the T-Birds. I have seen “Grease” a thousand times and know all the songs, but this one sticks out so vividly because I remember my brothers and neighbor boys and I standing on our basement sofas performing this song—with all the dance moves, of course—like we were the T-Birds as we watched it repeatedly. (I wish that my parents had recorded more of our nonsense, because I would die to see this stuff now.) Go greased lightning!
  5. “Roll On”—Alabama. This was the signature roadtrip song for the crosscountry family misadventures (see my post “Roadtrip Down Memory Lane”), since my dear mother only ever brought one cassette for the entire trip. I didn’t know any better. Roll on!
  6. “I Love Rock ‘n Roll”—Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. Enough said.
  7. “Cum On Feel The Noize”—Quiet Riot. I have to include this not just because it is one of those quintessential 1980’s rock anthems that got played at every school dance—and still charges me up to hear it—but because of how it fits with my Joan Jett story. You see, at that first concert for 9-year-old me, the warm-up band for Joan Jett was a totally unknown band named Quiet Riot, and they blew us away with all of the material from the “Metal Health” album that would become popular a year or so later. At nine years old, I reached the peak of my interest in metal—ha!
  8. “Beat It”—Michael Jackson. I am such a child of the early days of MTV, and I could easily produce a 50-song soundtrack of songs that influenced me from those early years of the network (you don’t know how it pains me to leave off this list The J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold”, which threw our whole house into a frenzy every time it got played). Michael Jackson’s brilliance as a performer was perfect for the music video medium, and I was totally captivated. Much like some of the others on this list, “Beat It” is my representative for all of the amazing stuff that Michael put out in those early years, including “Thriller”. When I hear the song now, the dance-off video leaps onto the screen of my mind.
  9. “Mony Mony”—Billy Idol. I can’t even really claim to like this song, but when I think of high school dances, this song is the first thing that comes to my mind. It was like we all had permission to shout the F-word, and what more does a teenager want? So we shouted!
  10. “You’re The Inspiration”—Chicago. Roadtripping with my best friend to tennis tournaments, to Chicago (where we actually saw the band Chicago play), and across the American Rockies. The “Greatest Hits 1982-1989” album logged a lot of miles. Lots of sappy love songs—right up my alley.
  11. “U Can’t Touch This”—MC Hammer. I remember riding in a school bus with a high school girls’ tennis team with this song blaring, and each time it would come to the right parts, we would all shout, “STOP! HAMMER TIME!!!” Pure, unadulterated fun.
  12. “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You”—Michael Bolton. I am probably supposed to be embarrassed that I was a huge Bolton fan in my late high school-early college years. I remember when my mom first got this cassette before we left for a long roadtrip to a tennis tournament. By the time we returned, I was sold. This song made it on many a mix tape.
  13. “Summertime”—DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. This was the Summer song for 1991, the year I graduated high school. I hear this and think of my buddies. That was our time together, and we soaked it up. After all of these years, I would still lay down in traffic for those guys.
  14. “Walking In Memphis”—Marc Cohn. My favorite. I also found this song in the Summer of ’91, and I include it not so much from one memory at that time but for how deeply it moved me—and moves me to this day. Though he is widely considered a one-hit wonder for this song, Cohn sunk deep into my soul with this entire album, and he has remained foremost in my heart ever since. Like some of the others, this spot on my list really represents a lot of songs, including “True Companion”, which played in my wedding. I have sung Marc’s songs to soothe my crying kids on their tough nights, and to soothe myself in the best and worst times of my life. This song, which is about a spiritual experience for him, has become a spiritual experience for me.
  15. “I Go To Work”—Kool Moe Dee. This was my “pump-up song” to get ready for intramural basketball games in college. I love this whole album, but this song completely brings it. This is good rap. Old school like the old school!
  16. “Jessie”—Joshua Kadison. This song–and all of the others from his “Painted Desert Serenade” album–is so much about singing my lungs out on solo roadtrips across the land. I love Kadison’s storytelling, and despite a short career, he has always been on my short list of favorites. A wonderful memory is seeing him play live at the House of Blues in Los Angeles.
  17. Round Here”—Counting Crows. Their debut song “Mr. Jones” was so overplayed that I didn’t want to get the “August and Everything After” album, but someone dear to me insisted. This is the first song, and I was completely shaken by it. I bought it in Washington, DC September of 1994, and it played in my Discman the entire Autumn and Winter I spent there and New York City. It has played on every roadtrip since, and never fails to move me. I love this song, this album, this band.
  18. “Mystery”—Indigo Girls. Someone randomly gave me this CD, “Swamp Ophelia”, in L.A.; she didn’t know why she had it and didn’t want it. This is the epitome of “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” I had never heard Indigo Girls before that, but they didn’t leave my CD player for months afterward. This song in particular captured my soul from the beginning, and it has become another roadtrip staple for me. This band is on my short list, and the song is amazing live.
  19. “The Promise”—Tracy Chapman. I walked down the aisle of my wedding to this song. Though she had put out a number of albums before “New Beginning”, this album is where I discovered Tracy on a camping trip to Montana. I played it nonstop, and this song always hit me right in the heart. It led to a huge collection of her music and eventually hearing the song live in concert while holding hands with my wife. A pretty cool relationship moment.
  20. “No One”—Alicia Keys. This one is for my daughter. When she was an infant and having a crying fit that could not be settled, this song always came to my rescue. I would put the iPod dock on REPEAT mode with “No One” and sway through the kitchen with her in my arms. It did the trick every time. I love the song anyway, but knowing that my little angel loved it, too, gave it an extra special place in my heart.

There you have it: the soundtrack of my life. As I said, I can think of dozens of songs that are deserving of a spot on the playlist, and it pains me to leave them off. But this list seems right for my journey.

How about your journey? What is on the playlist of your life? Get out your journal and your CDs/cassettes/albums/iPod. Let yourself be swept away. What images come up with the songs? Do you remember the good and the bad times equally? How many images are about love? Who do the songs make you miss the most? Which is your favorite? Do you have, like me, such clear images of the songs of childhood, but fewer standouts from more recent years? I hope you have as much fun dancing through your memories as I did in making my list. Leave me a reply and let me know: what’s on the soundtrack of your life?

Sing out loud & dance like nobody’s watching,

William