::Memory lane’s soundtrack:: feat PALE SEAS

Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it. — Wilferd Peterson

Will you humor me for a bit? This is an exercise in introspection. Can you picture yourself at your favorite coffee shop? Or maybe a solo picnic in the park. What happens when you are left alone with your thoughts, when you venture down memory lane?

[This is only a daydream.] I’m in my favorite coffee house in Portland, Oregon. It’s called, The Pied Cow. I’ve been coming here for years. I’m sitting near a window, it’s raining. I’m drinking Mango Ceylon tea and I’ve brought my notebook. I’m actually writing, as opposed to pulling out my laptop so I can type. This atmosphere has never felt conducive to computers. I sit here, pen poised on the paper, sipping tea, and I find myself overly nostalgic. Looking out through the rain streaked windows I start to see shapes and faces, my memories coming to life and playing themselves out before my eyes. The best part? I get to participate merely as an observer. Outside on the sidewalk, in the pouring rain, I see the fearless seventeen year old version of me. She’s laughing. She was always laughing. She skips and splashes in the puddles and spins around, arms stretched out, face lifted to the sky. It’s likely my friends wanted to get in out of the rain, but I was concocting some scheme, no doubt. I often found rain to be a brilliant muse. Maybe we’d drive to the coast, or go camping. The when/where/how details were lost on me. What mattered was the why. And the answer to why was nearly always the same.

Life is meant to be lived and if you’re not making memories you’re not LIVING. You are merely existing.

It’s rather strange now, nearly seventeen years later (Inhale. Really? That long?), to realize I feel maternal towards that 17 year old me. She was naive and spirited. Unbroken, but surprisingly guarded. I like to think she’s still there; I look for her in the mirror sometimes. She was braver than I am now. Although, there was ample foolishness mixed with her boldness. She was considerably more impulsive. She rarely took no for an answer. I’m no longer naive and I’ve put blood, sweat, and tears into not becoming jaded. I suppose I still have her sparkle, her hope, her belief in better days still to come. On a good day I can reconcile her choices as being my own. Funny how that works.

My philosophies have matured some since then; they’ve certainly expanded. But I still marvel at the things I’ve done, at the stories I have to tell. All because I was born with some driving force inside of me that required me to BE IN IT. I refused to watch life pass by. If we were by a mountain, I climbed it. If we were near a body of water I would at least get my feet wet on principal and more often than not our plans would get derailed because I had to submerge myself.

Using music to induce nostalgia is common practice for me. I will settle in with a cup of hot tea and watch the filmstrip of my life flash, slideshow-style, through my mind. Lately, I’ve been doing this more and more often. I suppose it’s because of the book I’m writing. I need to go back to the beginning, all the various beginnings of my life. I happen to adore beginnings, so I’ve allowed myself a few (and then a few more). As I indulge in this retrospection, I’m caught off-guard by the memories stirred by music, and music alone. I often go back to what I was listening to at a particular time in my life if I’m really trying to awaken those memories, if I want to capture that time with better accuracy. However, some music is timeless; it feels familiar, even when it isn’t.

It was over six months ago the first time I heard Bodies, by Pale Seas. My initial reaction was, “Ah yes. I know this song.” It was as though a long lost friend had made its way back to me. I felt traces of Mazzy Star’s, Fade Into You, but also Silversun Pickups’, Lazy Eye. Bodies merged seamlessly into my listening rotation, like it had been there all along. Lately though, it’s getting a lot more play. It serves as a splendid soundtrack to these little memory lane expeditions. Each play awakens something new. One day, when I pull this little book project of mine together, Pale Seas will likely get an inspiration shout out.

How about you? Artist friends, writer friends, kindred listeners, what are you sound-tracking your days with?

https://vimeo.com/48023642

Listen and read through the lyrics. Try it at a coffee shop. Try it in the park with a glass of wine. Do you feel yourself drawn to those all-but-forgotten places?

Connect with Pale Seas:
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LYRICS
Love’s chewed a hole in me, but it couldn’t take my mind
The second time I’m blind and my heart’s not there
And time was the second healer running down my spine
I see it all the time. Oh, your heart’s not there
But your body’s clinging on to what you have
When the race is over, I will be gone
I can feel us drowning in the southern air
And my heart is screaming “No, No, No, No!”
It’s going, gone
And life has set into motion what you wanted most
I’m running to the coast and I’m staying there
But time and all its ocean, I can’t get there soon
All the things she said were true, I’m not going no where
If she won’t sing for me, will she sing for the devil?
Then all my love came running back
I can feel us drowning in the southern air
And my heart is screaming “No, No, No, No!”
But your body’s clinging on to what you have
When your race is over, I will be gone
I can feel us drowning in the southern air
And my heart is screaming “No, No, No, No!”
It’s going, gone.