exile

I finally did cardio again today after a hiatus of... Well, we don't really need to put a figure to it, do we? Anyway, I decided that I was going to listen to an album, rather than a playlist or random songs, on the iPod while working out, which I don't usually do. And while I was doing that, it occurred to me how I wanted to blog about how some albums are a complete work of art and should be listened to and appreciated as such, no shuffling or skipping songs and screwing with the artist's vision.

But I changed my mind. What I want to talk about is how a very few albums are, to me, like madeleines to Proust, an unavoidable font of memory, causing an almost visceral feeling of time and place. Today's album reminds me, always and forever, of the summer after my freshman year of college, living in Allston, and most specifically, of a certain kind of summer weather: those hot, cloudy days when the humidity is 150% and you pray for a thunderstorm to break the heat, to allow you to breathe. I can listen to it in February and just about feel the clamminess on my skin, the low-pressure migraine threatening to pound behind my eyes. Visceral.

I specifically remember one particular day that is indelibly linked in my brain with both that weather and that music. We had an electric bill that was three or four months overdue and needed to be paid that day or our service was going to be cut off. Somehow, I was the only one who had the day off or something, and I was elected to go on the mythic quest through the wilds of Brighton with our wads of cobbled together cash to find the electric company office and save the day. I remember walking for what seemed like miles and miles through neighborhoods I'd never been in, my espadrilles giving me blisters, and the air like a damp blanket in my lungs. And in my memory, there's only one soundtrack to that episode.

Which is a false memory, of course. In those days before iPods or even Walkmen, walking through Brighton didn't have a soundtrack per se. But it would have been that album, because I listened to it every single day that summer. Multiple times. I was obsessed. It was a wonder my roommates didn't kill me.

But they had their own quirks, of course. There was L, who was my best friend L's older sister. But that's too many L's, so we'll just call her Linda. Because that was her name. She was into modern dance, and being a dancer, her obsession was in being as skinny as possible. Some of her methods were relatively benign, like the macrobiotic diet--though it did lead to a weekly seaweed taste test: "No, try this one, Andrea; this one you're gonna like..." But, alas, it all tasted like getting a mouthful of beach water to me. And some were less benign, like the amphetamines, which led to charming behaviors like deciding to clean the apartment at 5 am because she was wired on black beauties, and then being angry and hurt that no one would help her.

But we had our ways of getting back. She used to get offended and perplexed when she and I went out walking and guys turned to look at me. "But I'm the one who works out three hours a day..." and I would just smugly tell her it was my fabulous rack. Or when we were all sitting around the floor in the apartment, she would be offended and perplexed that she did all the stretching and yet we had more hip flexibility. "That's because you're a virgin, Linda. Maybe you should just have some sex instead of stretching..."

But in the end, I guess she had the last laugh on me. She stiffed me with a bill when she knew I wouldn't make too big of a deal about it because of my friendship with her sister. And she took my very favorite white pants with her when she went to NYC for the weekend. Without asking. Not that I'm still pissed or anything, 26 years later. Ahem.

So, um, yeah, music. That whole rush of vivid memories was just triggered by pushing play on the right selection on the iPod. Does that happen to you?

xoxo