And Butterflies Are Free to Fly

I doubt and have doubted nearly everything else before, even in the face of such true magic or religion or whatever on earth (and beyond) it has been. I have never doubted these Radio Gods. Somehow, anywhere, I always hear the exact song I want or need to hear. It’s not always pretty, and it can be a delicious slice of a song, cutting into the airwaves through a whole cake of noise and static. Around a mountain bend, buoying me and telling me to, yes, call that college boy I haven’t seen in over two years and, yes, invite him to the prom. I mean, why not? I just heard the exact song that played the exact last time I saw him and he held me so close. Right? Right. It’s stuff like that, or hearing “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” a week after my grandmother’s funeral, when I’m finally crawling out of a deep, dark hole of despair. She gave me the Wizard of Oz toys.

It’s a so-far lifetime of such occurrences. I always believe they’ll tell me what I need to know, or want to know, if I just listen. It happened when I was pregnant with Scarlet, and Des, and when Des was hospitalized in the NICU. It happened with Rider as well, although sometimes I ignored it and flipped around to find other answers I wanted, but no, it doesn’t work like that. Ever. This strange little bizarre and unexplained phenomena is probably no different from tarot cards and tea leaves; pendulums and palm readings. It’s just about listening. Not trying to rush or guide or move the needle. Just listen; learn. You’ll find answers. Maybe it’s you (and has been) all along.

For me, people always carried songs with them, although they didn’t know it. I had a boyfriend way long ago, and the song, “Tainted Love” would play on the radio whenever I first scanned it, thinking of him. And I was a baby when that song came out! This was clearly well over a decade later. When I met Cassidy, at least online and on the phone, at first, the song that always played was “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” It happened enough to be weird. As with “Tainted Love,” it wasn’t a new song in 2004. I didn’t even know it until then. It came out well before I was born.

It’s partly why I write, and why I do photography. It’s somewhat about how to not fade away in the world; to be tangible, solid, remembered. For me, it’s about how not to fade away to myself. There are these twists and turns and slices of magic around the mountain bends, and I’m afraid to forget who I am as a whole, as well as all of the stepping stones and tidbits that have kept me whole, or at least, reasonably so. All off the stepping stones and tidbits that have kept me who I am. All of them. Mix CDs can be like photographs, in that they remind you of precious pieces of yourself, but there are fading ways to save them and play them. New technology can’t sustain them, when they’re flimsy and scratched anyway. You can make electronic playlists, but all of your rotating computers come and go, and hard drives don’t keep either. You can’t keep it all.

It came on a long country road, just last weekend. I was running a few various long country road errands, and this stopped me in my tracks. Forgotten, until remembered. I was floored for quite awhile. Heck, I still am. The thing is, it was always a part of me. Not hearing it or remembering it doesn’t change the parts of me that build my life and grow it; the parts of me that love. It was a delicious little slice, no, a mere morsel, of a whole cake – fading in and out on this long country road. Calling to me, reminding me, stopping me in my tracks, and also making me see that I am whole without it, whole with it, and always grateful for a reminder of love. Of life. Of how far I’ve come, and heck, I’ll always still be coming. Just around the mountain bend. Listening for its call.

I went through my birthing playlist! I’m starting a new one, based on themes/feelings of the week, or what the Radio Gods are saying. “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” is #2 on my playlist.