1 photo, 1 song: #5
Last week, I spent an hour wandering around a beach I hadn’t visited before with my film camera. I was about to leave a writing retreat I’d been able to briefly attend, and just about every single thing about it had been lovely. I’d gotten a lot of words down too, more than I had even expected. But I think probably the best thing I did for myself was deciding to bring my film camera, which I hadn’t picked up in months.
And this beach I was exploring—it was fucking metal. The whole thing had barely any people but a hundred thousand pieces of epic driftwood. Like, I can’t even explain how much driftwood was on this sand, how huge a lot of it was, how kind of terrifying and badass but beautiful it all looked. It felt like a different planet. I took so many fucking pictures of this driftwood, even while knowing that most of these shots were going to look the same and inadequate whenever I got them developed; I climbed to the top of a pile of them while the wind almost blew me over—because the wind at this bitch was also something else—and I got my camera almost focused enough to click the shutter on these starfish and anemones in a tide pool before a wave came and chased me and a stranger away, and we both laughed.
I felt so free during that hour on the beach. I was doing whatever I wanted. It was like a core memory unlocking: I used to do this. I used to spend hours wandering outside with my camera. I used to spend so much time doing whatever I wanted.
It’s harder to do whatever you want when you have a kid, when you have a job(s), when fascists are taking over your government, when you want to be a good partner. And while I’d give up some of those things in a heartbeat, I would never give up being a parent, or being Kathy’s partner. Never.
Still. There is something to be said for having an hour where I didn’t have to look over my shoulder every minute to make sure that my kid hadn’t run too far into the waves, that my dog hadn’t run too far away, that my other dog hadn’t attacked another dog, that I wasn’t letting someone down. I knew no one else at the retreat gave a shit about what I was doing (affectionate) or when I was coming back. It was only me and my camera and the driftwood and the wind.
I was equally happy to get home two hours later and see all of them: my kid and my wife and my dogs; there was even some level of comfort in returning to my work routines the next day. But it was valuable to remember what it felt like, to do whatever I wanted. I’m grateful I got to do so much of it when I was young. I know I’ll get to do it again, one day, when I’m old, when the obligations have slowed down.
And I know, until then, while I’m lucky enough to have all those obligations with me, I can still remember to bring my camera along, once in a while.
A couple days later, driving home from a concert, something weird happened: my phone was plugged into the stereo, as it had been on the drive there, except it started playing some random ass playlist. So random that I started asking what the hell is happening a few songs in, as almost all the songs were ones I had not listened to in years. But they were all songs I loved, to the extent where I had to cut off some conversations inside the car so I could pump up the volume and listen to this song I had completely forgotten existed but needed to listen to so loudly NOW.
About halfway through the Alls, we realized that whatever was happening was happening in alphabetical order, and it then became a kind of fun game to see what would pop up next.
Much later, I realized that what had happened was that when my phone is charging while also being connected to the Bluetooth—we have a new (to us) car and are still figuring things out; apparently this is the first time this has happened—it kicks me off of Spotify and reverts to my Apple Music. Where I didn’t even know I still had any music downloaded. Which holds a collection of music I believe I last actively listened to when I was still taking runs with my iPod Shuffle.
It took us an hour to get home but we barely even made it out of the As. I’ve continued this alphabetical musical trip through the past on my own in the days since, more core memories unlocked, and one that really stuck out to me was near the start of the Bs: Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning) by Vertical Horizon.
Yeah! Vertical fucking Horizon! Remember them? I hadn’t anyway, in quite some time. And especially not this song.
But as soon as it started I was like oooooooh man. Grey sky fucking morning. Younger me loved the shit out of this. The line love can be so boring always really struck me. I probably thought it was deep. Now I think, what a young person thing to think.
Though, when he sings:
Put it in a letter
Make yourself feel better
Well. That’s kind of the plot of the book I just wrote. lol. I might add it to the book’s playlist, just for shits and giggles.
Anyway, I’m still not the rest of the way through the Bs—I haven’t looked ahead; each song is still a surprise—but I keep finding myself humming this one, these last few days. What a gift, to hear a song again that you hadn’t heard in a long time.
Everything right now is so bad bad bad. But there are still little gifts, everywhere.
xo
anita