Songs and Memories

It's amazing how strongly a song can be connected to a particular event in memory.

I remember humming Radiohead's "How To Disappear Completely" the entire time Jonah was being born. There was an intial scare with what they thought was an irregular heartbeat on his first APGAR, and the whole event had a surreal quality to it. He spent a while in NICU, and when I think back to the time in the birthing room and standing outside the glass staring down at him in his little bed, I hear, "I'm not here . . ."

He's okay now, of course, and that's a real depressing way to begin a blog. Let's try a different one.

On iTunes today, I got the song "Roundabout", by the band Yes. In high school and college, my friend Mark was a huge Yes fan. At the end of one summer, when his girlfriend (or maybe they were engaged by then) was in Europe, he and I decided to drive down to Florida for a weekend. Seaside was pretty new then, and the beaches along 30-A were empty and gorgeous (they're still gorgeous).

We drove down in his VW Scirocco, listening to Yes and Beastie Boys' "Check Your Head" album.

(Hang on, let me check that one out on iTunes. Wow. I'll have to buy that, too.)

We stayed in a crappy old motor hotel in Panama City, a block or two off the water, so the room was about $20 per night. We didn't care, because we'd wake up and drive out to Seaside and spend the day on their beach. Sneaky. And cheap.

The last day we were there, a serious thunderstorm blew in from the ocean, and we watched the sheets of rain coming across the water and onto land, first from the beach, then from inside the car. Thunder and lightning are awesome to watch when they're far away, but they're really really scary when you're unprotected on the beach.

In the middle of the storm, sitting in the car, we decided to drive home. Right then. So we drove all the way back to Atlanta wearing our swimsuits with beach sand still in them. Ouch.

So when I hear old Yes songs on the radio (or now, in iTunes), I remember that trip. Salt water, thunderstorm, sandy shorts. Not bad.