The Power of Music

Music, for me, is an emotional touchstone. It can link straight to memories that bring feelings of joy, or grief, or an association. 

I will never hear Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" or "Circle in the Sand" without being transported to the house where I lived from age eight to 22, sitting on the couch with my dad while he watched the movie Cave Man (with Ringo Starr!) and I listened to my Belinda Carlisle tape on my Walkman. That was also when I realized that when I made my Barbie and Ken "do it," I was setting it up all wrong. Please tell me I'm not the only girl who just mashed Barbie and Ken together and called it sex. 

I am sad that I won't have much opportunity to serendipitously hear my wedding song with Bryce, "Rings," by Leo Kottke, because it's not exactly in the radio rotation. We can make it appear at home, but that's not really the same thing.

However, I do hear my first wedding song, try not to gag too much, "Don't Want to Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith (it was 2000! And yes, it was from the disaster movie Armageddon, the irony of which is not lost on me) from time to time. It used to make me physically nauseous, and now just leaves me feeling vaguely icky. It does not remind me of the wedding. It reminds me of the tenuous period after infidelity(ies) was discovered, and I was still living in our house but he was living on a friend's couch, and he would come get stuff and then be gone by the time I got back from work. I would go to the bedroom and see the dvd player going, and when I turned on the TV, Armageddon would be cued up on loop, ostensibly to remind me of all the good things and that I shouldn't leave but the result was more... growing unease and the gelling thought that this was my out, that I would not be staying. 

When I hear Ani DiFranco I think of my sister wearing hippie dresses, home from college for the holidays. When I hear Chopin piano pieces I think of my mom's senior recital, her fingers flying across the keyboard. When I hear Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers' Christmas song, "With Bells On,"  I am back at my best friend's childhood home, dancing in wild circles around the big dining room table. When I hear the hymn "Be Thou My Vision" I remember playing violin for my grandmother, and then playing it with my mom accompanying on piano for her funeral service. 

Today, I had a visceral reaction to music that was played on Vermont Public Radio's "Sunday Cinema" with Lynne Warfel, which we listen to every Saturday morning at 11:00 while we eat breakfast shamefully late after sleeping in. I can't hear this music without crying. Literally I hear the strains and I see the images that go with it, and the feelings just leak out my eyes, down my face. 

It's the instrumental theme "Married Life" from Pixar's Up. I linked to it without the visuals, because it is goddamn traumatizing. Basically, it's Karl's backstory -- he's a grouchy, curmudgeonly old man, and this short vignette lets you know exactly why. It's the whole story of his marriage, including a devastating turn of events where they lose a pregnancy after decorating a nursery and you can infer that they are told children won't be possible, because Ellie, the wife, sinks into a depression where you can feel her numbness, and he gets her out of it and they follow other dreams, planning a trip to Venezuela that just keeps getting pushed due to life hiccups and expenses and then she gets sick AND DIES.  

So that's why he's a grumpy old guy.

JEEZUS, PIXAR. What a way to start a movie with a balloon-flying house and a talking dog with ADHD that's FOR KIDS. Way to dissolve the adults, particularly those with histories of loss. There's a reason why I watch that scene on YouTube when I am emotionally constipated and need a good cathartic cry. 

When I hear that music, I see the whole thing. And I am struck by similarities and fears. Replace Venezuela with puffins. I feel her excitement and joy when decorating the nursery.  I feel her pain and disbelief when she's sitting in the garden after their loss, all empty-eyed and hollow. And I fear someday leaving Bryce a widower, alone and curmudgeonly. 

So I cried. And then I explained it to Bryce, who was looking at me with concern while I cried during the song at breakfast, and then when he understood where it was coming from, he cried, too. 

But then the music changed and it wasn't the intense sadness trigger anymore. My face was a little puffy, but then the day moved on and that crushing memory of grief didn't follow either of us. 

I'm glad that music can make me feel so much, but I'm also glad it can touch those places in my emotional memory without breaking me for the rest of the day. What music moves you?