This week, I wandered into nostalgia. I wandered into a past where I was whole (I thought), strong (I felt), and overcaffeinated (totally).
It was the late 90s. It was a coffee shop that called me back for an interview. It was a job that I took on to start creating my independent life away from my parents and old friends. I was striking out for the new, the wondrous, the free coffee.
And I did. I woke up for the 6 am to 2 pm shift, blasting Led Zeppelin in my car on the way in. The five-minute drive included me singing and smoking and feeling life as a wide opportunity to be out loud.
Those times were confident or ignorant, probably both. I didn’t know yet how my heart would be broken. I didn’t yet know that my first boyfriend (then ex) would die and no one would be able to cover my shift so I could be with him during an especially scary night.
I didn’t know that yet.
I was only a poet and a constant fixture at work. I was funny and fearless until death decided to arrive. Going to a funeral for a 23-year-old when you’ve just turned 20 is a reality check. Seeing football players cry, seeing hundreds of people gather to say goodbye to someone who died too soon, too suddenly, is a moment that can change you.
I changed. I walked away from settling and into the great risk of love.
Reconnecting with a Love Spell
The value of age is knowing how to take a breath (most of the time) before settling fully into an idea or an answer. The perspective that comes with living 20+ years after this death holds my hand when I remember the littler details.
I connect back to myself with music. Always have. I have been an avid creator and recipient of mix tapes (yeah, yeah), CDs (still have a lot of these), and streaming playlists. And the other day, I decided to find a certain singer online, as I was running out of dopamine and needed to get going on a lot of work.
The album is called “something to remember me by” by Ben Lee. I played this CD over and over and over at the coffee shop when I worked. I played it so much that people began to make fun of me. And while it was good-spirited, I still felt that sting, a deep reaction even today to not tell anyone I was listening to this album again.
(I’m listening to it now.)
With music, I can go back to the person I was. I can remember how she was excited about life and scared about what might happen if things changed. I can go back to how I made a phone call that ended a relationship. I can step back into the coffee shop with the thinnest carpet and the loudest espresso machine.
I can step back into the spells I was creating then, unconsciously. The spells of risking what I knew for what I wanted. What I thought I needed. What I thought would save me. But I didn’t need to be saved.
I know that now.
Talking to Myself
Today, I can listen to songs about love and remember how I wanted to live a life someone would sing about. A life that someone would celebrate out loud, a life that would know me so well and be so recognizable that I would have no trouble finding the next road.
But life is sharper with an unpredictable turning radius. It only makes sense in the rearview. I might make sense of it when I glance behind me, when I allow myself that rotation. In these nostalgic moments, I turn my whole body around more easily.
I look into the eyes of her, me, us. I look at her and tell her that it all turned out the way it would, the way it needed to.
I take her arm and show her that the sun takes care of lonely moments. I take her face and smile until she smiles back. I sing the songs out loud and we sing together because it’s what makes us happy.
And little by little, we don’t care if anyone hears us.
And note by note, we connect to each other, trust each other and know ourselves as the past, present, and mystery of what’s next.
Little by little, I reach out to the music that sang songs for me, to me. I put on headphones and close my eyes, and love the me that still knows every single word.
Because you don’t forget the words that said what you couldn’t say. Or know.
Yet.
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