This one's a little different than my usual show or album critique but I hope you enjoy it...
Big padded 80’s headphones covering my ears while sitting cross-legged for hours in front of our mammoth stereo system. Songs speaking to me in a language no one else could. Those are the first memories I have of really, truly loving something beyond my family. Carefully pulling the vinyl out of the sleeve and placing it on the turntable, sometimes after feeling the excitement of tearing off the outer layer of plastic. Those records were gorgeous with their big, loud art or photos covering the cardboard. I would stare at the album covers until I’d pretty much memorized all there was to see, then pull out the liner notes and learn the words to all the songs. I remember the cover of the Thriller album with Michael Jackson laying on his elbow, his wrist tendons popping out large and menacing on the page. This was when his skin was still brown and his nose still had a tinge of African-American sensibility. I remember my Mom carefully taking back the Rick James album with his pimp portrayal on the cover – “You might not be ready to listen to that one quite yet” Superfreak indeed. I still think Prince’s “When Doves Cry” is pretty hot and heavy for a 5-year-old but I was so clueless when it came to the REAL birds and bees, all I felt was the funk. I thought “Like A Virgin” meant “childlike” or “naïve”… something along those lines. Never had a clue it related to sex. But man, I sure did want to be Madonna back then. All that platinum blond hair, the tulle, and the belt buckle that said “boy toy”. She was so cool. I would lean my back against the navy blue couch and sit for hours, singing and imagining myself as someone like that – a performer, a symbol of beauty and confidence.
When dance class started at age 3, I was mostly bored by the music that was used but I sure loved to move and perform. When I auditioned for Houston Ballet and started performing in front of big audiences, it was a dream come true. Staring into the hot stage lights, black silhouetted outlines of the heads in the audience, I knew a secret hardly anyone knows. I knew what it meant to feel the eyes on you, to have them fuel you, the adrenaline coursing through you. After countless hours of practice, muscle memory was so ingrained, my body would execute the dance every time, regardless of how nervous I was. That’s when dancing elevates from physical beauty to transcendence- the irony of being so in your body that you feel like you could fly out of it at any moment. Nothing has made me feel that joy before or since and I sometimes fear that nothing ever will again. The closest I get to it is when I hear a song that says the things I can’t find the words to say, or when I’m dancing with a group of strangers and an amazing mix of joyous or heart-wrenching music lifts everyone up and out of the present moment into pure FEEL.
The joy, the pain, the sorrow, the loneliness... we all feel it, only some of us find ways to define it that give peace and hope to others. Some of the most gorgeous songs so clearly came out of rock-bottom pain and tragedy. When friends,lovers, and even family let you down, there’s always music as Savior. When Leonard Cohen or Jeff Buckley sing “Hallelujah”, you know that there is either a beautiful, gracious God somewhere out there or we are achingly, tragically alone--maybe both are true. But one thing is certain, everyone FEELS something when they hear that song.
When I was trying to withdraw my heart from a recent, painful relationship, I heard an old Kathleen Edwards song, “Sweet Little Duck” and it just shredded my heart. The truth in her voice was almost unbearable “Cuz you’ve got me on your shelf and I just sit here/ Thinking about when everything was right. And you say you don’t got any answers/ Well I’m tired of you not making up your mind.” Yeah, I felt that – it’s time to let go.
Dancing and music have been weaving a constant thread throughout my life…sometimes black, sometimes silver, sometimes thick, at times delicate, but always there. I can follow the thread back to both the happiest and most painful times in my life. The song leads like a hypnotist. It will take me immediately there to feel those feelings as though it was yesterday and then ask, “What’s changed? Where are you now?
Who are you now?”
That’s what love is-love holds a mirror up to you and says “This is you, for better or worse- and I’m still here.”
