magic music

I enjoy making dinner. It is an action I learned from my mother who could bake, cook and prepare meals for one or a million. She added her love to every meal and the pleasure on her face when the ooh’s and ahh’s ran rampant still is embedded in my mind. It is a memory, I cherish and embrace.

Last night was a Saturday night at home after Joe and I explored yet one more canyon in Malibu. We hiked a high road and witnessed mountains, valleys, peaks and pieces of nature that made us both stop and wonder just how majestic our Earth is. (More memories added in a lifetime together). So after a long day out we decided to stay home, have a home cooked meal with a few glasses of wine and just enjoy each other’s company.

When I cook I need to have some music playing in the background. Soothing music somehow for me digs deep and preparing dinner becomes that much more pleasurable. I have a playlist tilted Magic on my I-Pod. It is a culmination of music that when I first heard it brought with it moments and memories of change, decision, clarity as well as emotions from loud to soft, big to small, pleasure and pain. (Of course like many of us while that music was playing then I had no idea the impact it had on my life at the moment).

So as the daylight lingered a little longer keeping the dusk from enveloping our kitchen, and this soft orange light in the sky bathed the front of our house, I thought, “... it was a magical day, this end of day is almost like a scene from a movie, why not keep the theme and play my magic and recall memories.

The good news for me is that the Magic Playlist elicits sometimes forgotten experiences and the people in my life who made those moments happen. The bad news is this Playlist is a serious collection of comedy and tragedy all at once. So as my social work friends used to say, this was a “Yeah, Boo” scenario. And as I was preparing our seafood delight, I was deep in thought about THEN as I am here I am NOW.

Perhaps the wine, the delight in cooking, my man next to me, but a bittersweet melancholy began to cover me and I began to wonder and consider. As the music played I wondered if I had not taken the chances, risks or did not avoid the opportunities  

afforded me  THEN, would I be standing here now even knowing what I missed or attempted? Music blared announcing the first time I fell in love, the moment of the birth of my two kids, the first job interview, the first rejection from a job, my awareness of being Gay, my pronouncement out loud of being Gay, my career decision, my wishing I had not become a communal worker but had instead traveled to Broadway. The list of what if, if I hadn’t, how come I did or didn’t blasted in my brain like shards of fire works on the Fourth of July. And with each note and harmony faces of people from my past showcased as if they were standing next me. Some were perfectly clear, others sadly had a bit of mist or fog surrounding them and I wanted so much to see them as I had met them.

Memories of the past have always played an important role in my present state of mind motivated by the music either background sounds or profound symphonies.  I hear a song, I immediately remember the good, the bad, the ugly, the delight and the cast of characters in starring roles or extras on the set. The music is on a reel that is a continuum bumpy at times and the beat is erratic, but it plays.

And last night after climbing hills that led to mountains to the sky, walking through valleys endless in grasses, rocks and trees, I wondered about life, my life. I tried to understand how grand my life is and has been, or how minute my living was or is. And I wondered why even collect memories of a part of your life you can never repeat. Why not only listen to new music. I was happy/sad.

And then sitting next to me ready to share dinner, I looked and saw Joe, kissed him and THEN faded away because NOW was was counted.

I hope the day will be a lighter highway

For friends are found on every road

Can you ever think of any better way

For the lost and weary travellers to go

Making friends for the world to see

Let the people know you got what you need

With a friend at hand you will see the light

If your friends are there then everything's all right (“Friends”, Elton John, and Bernie Taupin)