The Songs You Used to Love

"I've been listening to Dave Matthews Band lately," he said, apropos of nothing.

"Really? Were you drunk?"

"No, that's the weird part."

We mused, then, about the concert we went to with people I no longer know, the guy who lost his wallet when he rolled down the hill at Sandstone, attempted deals in the parking lot. The first time I saw Dave Matthews in concert was with my husband, though I spent a lot of time brooding to that music in my first-floor apartment 42 steps from the street on Barry in Chicago.

I just spent ten minutes trying to remember the name of that street, where so much of my personality was laid down.

Which blows my mind.

It's one street south of Briar. I only remember that because of the Briar Street Theater, where I saw Blue Man Group when it was three guys and some paint. They dropped toilet paper from the ceiling, and when I left, my head was buzzing like I'd had mushrooms and six shots of tequila, and I was totally sober.

While sitting here thinking about all this, I've been listening to Ani DiFranco, "Sorry I Am," on repeat. I leaned on Ani pretty hard during my twenties. We searched for love together.

I don't know why red fades before blue, it just does.

But now, it seems, even Ani isn't Ani anymore. She's got a baby and a partner, and it sounds like she's happy. I need to get her latest album. I haven't thought about music as a thing in a long time -- it's just something that flows through the background of my days. I don't need it like I once did.

I'm getting to the point where the events that once seared themselves into my mind are hazy.  I don't really remember specific things so much as what I was feeling when I was listening to that song, as though I could briefly inhabit the body of Rita at 17, at 21, at 25, a real-life time traveler. 

You are only coming through in waves. Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying.

Past events that used to hurt are scarred over now. I can push on them, nothing. 

And I can once again listen to the songs I used to love.