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Inside: dry, hot heat blasting through vents, and one chart-topping single after the other.
Outside: salt-white roads, and all-season tires straddling the 300 miles gone and 300 miles to go.
I have turned on The Beatles’ album 1 in an attempt to bring energy to this long drive. Sing-alongs and harmonies ensue. I follow these songs like Bible verses, like the law of gravity. They are facts that exist beyond negotiation. While my reality was finding its form, these songs were there.
I let the melodies tug my memory around while my eyes stay on the road. Manipulative songs turn my stomach with longing for what I can no longer hold. Sweet, sticky nostalgia. Why do I tease out a desire that hurts so good?
Once, my mom took me to see Paul McCartney. It was a revelation. He was just a man, shaking his butt and having a good time. These songs which feel so holy came from a mortal not unlike you or me. Their magic relies on perspective.
Perspective is everything. So in the car, I try something new. What if instead of the past being something I can’t have, it is something that’s with me always? Instead of feeling a loss at a sweet memory, I feel a gain knowing that it’s a part of me.
All the early Beatles singles make me think of the soft edges of my childhood. It was safe and painless and silly. Lots of things happen to make life sharp and angular. It’s not so simple, sometimes, to move through a day, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Maybe we can remember the softest textures of our lives as a means of comfort rather than loss, and know that they are as true as ever.
Where is the "love" button when you need it? Again, I was both moved and encouraged. Thanks you teaching me with your life lessons.