My time machine is silver, has heated seats, and seats five comfortably. When I enter it, however, I am typically alone for the ride.
I often don’t enjoy traveling to the past. I am not overly sentimental and as a curious explorer, I find it far more exciting to anticipate what’s in the future than revisit what has happened in the past. Though every once in a while, my time machine will immediately transport back a few decades and place me smack me right in the middle of a concert I once attended or recall a vivid memory spent with friends.
This morning I unintentionally took a trip back in time on my way to work. As soon as I pulled my car out of my driveway, sounds of Dale Bozzio and Missing Persons filled my car. I used to love this band. They had a song called "Words", that contained a line that proclaimed simply “I think I’ll dye my hair my blue.” That lyric was the inspiration for my fifteenth birthday act of rebellion. I listened with smile recalling that day spent with friends, destroying my bathroom and coloring everything on my wake electric blue.
And just as quickly as that memory popped into my head, it was just as rapidly replaced by The Stray Cats blasting through my speakers. I used to adore them. I recalled a story of my parents letting me take the train to Boston alone with my friends on Saturday (a very big deal) and spending my allowance at Fiorucci, at the time an incredibly cool store, and buying a Stray Cats tshirt for $15. I used to pair it with my turquoise leopard skin pants. Wow.
My entire drive in went on like this, with me searching for songs to see if they could strike a distant memory and a funny story. And then, right as I approached Boston, it happened. Our song came on. The Cranberries "Linger" was the song E and I fell in love to. My first thought was to change the station, but I didn’t. I listened. And I thought of a dozen great memories from those early days. And I smiled.
And as I approached my office, I had the good sense to turn my dial back to a current radio station. I knew my time machine was back on firm ground, and I’m back in reality. Sort of. "Blurred Lines" was what I ended on. And it's fitting for this period in my life.
It’s fun to visit the past every so often, but I'm really happy to get out of the Time Machine and live in the present.
No comments:
Post a Comment