Stop and Hear the Music

I was sixteen when I moved out of my parents house. I started attending school at a small liberal arts college halfway across the country. I remember the day they dropped me off. They helped me unpack. My roommate had already moved in but was nowhere to be seen. She’d already covered the walls with her Ella Fitzgerld posters.

“At least she has good taste in music,” my father’d say.

He’d argue with me about nothing in-particular before they left. I didn’t know it then but that would become a tradition.

When my parents finally left, I put on this record, Dear Old Stockholm. Then I sat in the middle of the floor, closed my eyes and listened. This was my new home–one large open room with two beds, two dressers, and two desks. My roommate’s things hung on the walls and all of mine were tucked neatly into drawers.

I’ve been learning French recently and I’m terrible. French pronunciation is impossible for me. I don’t know why it can’t be easier like Korean or Chinese. I bought one of those Berlitz language courses about a year ago. I tried to do it for a month. Then I gave up.

A few months ago my husband decided he was going to teach my stepson French as part of his homeschooling. He invited me to join the lessons too. I reluctantly took him up on the offer. Now I’m constantly shown up by a child who seems have perfect French pronunciation. That’s okay. I can handle it. I’m a grown up.

I got a CD from the library. It’s a complication of music by women from various counrties throughtout the world, and Sadrine Kiberlain’s “M’envoyer des Fleurs” was the first song on it. The title means “I send myself flowers” or something like that. Anyway, I like this song a lot. It’s one of my favorites on the CD. I like the sound of her voice and it’s kind of a quirky song. If I learn how to sing it maybe it’ll help my French pronunciation.

In college, I had a friend named Matt who was interesting to say the least. He didn’t have a car so I used to drive him around—to the store to buy cigarettes and to various yard sales. He loved yard sales. Once we got lost on some dirt roads in the mountains because we were following signs for a yard sale. When we finally found the yard sale he bought a large orange ashtray with obvious seventies influences. The following year Matt bought a car. Excited to finally be able to return the favor of the many rides I’d given him, he offered to drive me to the store. When I accepted the ride, I had no idea how badly he drove.

The car was filled with food wrappers, soda cans, and other assorted items of trash. The car had a cassette player. The only cassette Matt had in the car at the time was “Self Destruction” by The Stop the Violence Movement. We listened to this song over and over again as Matt drove too quickly down country roads only looking at the road 60% of the time. When he dropped his cigarette in his lap he swerved over the double lines and we nearly ran head on into a school bus.

I was lucky to have survived that trip. Every time I hear “Self Destruction” that’s what I think of.

During my last year in high school, my friend gave me a copy of Fear of a Black Planet. She copied it onto a cheap tape that made a rattling noise when I shook it. I listened to it over and over until the tape snapped.

In college, I bought the CD at a used music store. It was missing the front cover, but that didn’t matter. I had just gotten a six changer CD player and was excited to use it. I owned no CD’s at the time and needed to buy at least six.

Raised in a black community, I wasn’t really aware of my minority status until I went away to college. “Did you know that most people in the US aren’t black? Walking down the street, the people you see are mostly white,” I told my parents on the phone one day. I thought I was informing them, but they laughed dismissively. I was serious. I had no idea.

My new knowledge of the world made me like Public Enemy even more. They had something to say. At the time I was just becoming aware of the injustices around me. I was sixteen and thought I could change everything—right every wrong. You can see by looking around you, it didn’t quite work out. I haven’t stopped trying though.

My favorite tracks on the CD are Burn Hollywood Burn, Fear of a Black Planet, and Fight the Power.

In 1993 I spent a few months living and studying in Zimbabwe. It was an amazing experience. I have a lot of unforgettable memories from that time in my life. This is one of them.

I was with my instructor, Julialynne. We were staying at her friend’s home. I don’t remember why we were on a trip without any of the other students from the program. It was an uncomfortable situation for me, because my Shona was terrible–most of the conversation went over my head. The hut was roach infested. The roaches weren’t afraid of us. They’d crawl across your lap without a second thought. “Just ignore them,” Julialynne said when she caught me trying to brush one away. “You don’t want to embarrass our hostess.” I was just hoping I hadn’t accidentally eaten one mixed in with my sadza (maze mush) and pumpkin greens.

We were sitting on a bare foam mat on the floor when our hostess came in with a small cassette player. She stuck in a tape and pressed play. “Do you know who this is?” Julialynne asked me. She assumed that someone of my generation wouldn’t recognize Hendrix. I didn’t want to let her down so I lied and told her that I had no idea who it was. “This is Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix!” she exclaimed. Then she said something to our hostess in Shona. They stood up and started dancing. I joined in. It was the best way to keep the roaches from crawling on me. We were three women dancing to Jimi Hendrix songs by candle light in the middle of the Zimbabwean wilderness.

If Jimi Hendrix were still alive he would’ve turned 65 yesterday.

There are few things from my childhood that still hold my interest. My only interest in Strawberry Shortcake is the edible kind, not the doll. While there was a time when all I wanted was a My Little Pony, if I got one for my birthday now I’d be pretty annoyed. I no longer think of Cabbage Patch Kids as lovable and huggable.

There is one thing that still holds my attention as an adult. Harry Nilsson’s “The Point” is a story about tolerance and self-worth interlaced with some great little songs. Listening to it still brings me great joy.

There was a time in my life when this was the only CD I listened to. I played it constantly, at home and in the car. I had it memorized.

My parents have a plastic bag of pictures in a drawer. Most of the pictures are of me and my sister, but a few feature my father with a stocky old man. They look like they’re on vacation in some tropical place, two round smiling faces under palm trees. When I asked my father who the man was, assuming he was a relative (we have so many cousins), my father said, “Don’t you remember Thad?” He thinks my memories stretch way back into infancy. He can’t remember anything from before he was thirteen.

“No,” I said.

“I can’t believe you don’t remember. ” He shook his head in disbelief and I felt like I had somehow let him down.

I like to listen to this CD and imagine the old man in the photo as the young man who recorded this CD. I like the sound of the trumpet, the melodic solos. I Can’t Get Started, I’ll Remember April, and You Don’t Know What Love Is are my favorites.

I was sitting at my computer, minding my own business when suddenly a few measures of a melody started running through my head. That was Monday and it’s been swirling in my brain, clogging up my thoughts ever since.

I catch myself humming it all the time. While cooking lunch one day, I was humming it louder than I realized and my husband asked me what I was singing. I hummed it for him again. “Do you know what that is?” he asked.

I was annoyed because he was acting like he recognized it. I had convinced myself over the past few days that I’d written it. I thought I was really on to something. I thought this was the start of my composing career–that I was on the edge of super-stardom.

“That’s A Remark You Made,” he said.

When I got home from work that night he played it for me and he was right. I hadn’t written anything. I was just humming the part of the tune where the bass plays the melody. I was humming that part over and over in a loop. With that realization, my composing career went up in smoke.

A couple of years ago, my sister graduated from law school. My parents, grandmother and I flew out to San Diego for the graduation. My parents and grandmother stayed in a beach rental near the Mexican border. Border Protrol helicopters buzzed the roof all night and most of the day. My mother and I went for a walk on a nearby nature trail in the marshes. We watched the helicopters circling overhead. “How will they know we’re not illegals,” I asked my mother. I hadn’t brought my wallet with me and was sure I would get arrested and sent back to Mexico. I can’t even speak Spanish.

My grandmother and my father spent the days grazing on sugar-filled snacks. Both of them were on their best behavior and hardly argued at all. My father pointed out his good behavor to me repeatedly during the week.

I stayed at my sister’s place. Her six year relationship was near collapse and their apartment was flooded with tension. I felt uncomfortable and out of place most of the time.

By the time we were ready to leave California, I was tired and tense. I’m sure all of us were. I wandered around the airport by myself, looking for good cell phone reception. The only place I found it was next to a Mexican restaurant that was blaring music through busted speakers. I sat down on a plastic airport chair and called my boyfriend at the time. It was good to talk to someone who wasn’t a relative. I didn’t say much, I just let him talk and talk. I was trying to figure out what to do about him. I had already gotten advice from a friend to break it off. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would get the same advice from others in the future.

When it was finally time to board, I hung up and made my way to the gate. A woman was freaking out about getting on the plane. She was crying and screaming. Airport security had formed a circle around her. As the paramedics came to take her away, we got on the plane.

The flight was unremarkable. After not being able to find anything to watch on television, I found a Miles Davis collection on the airline music channel and pulled out a novel to read. Once I’d listened to all the Miles Davis they had to offer, I started scrolling through the rest of the play list and I came across John Lennon’s Love. I remembered liking the album it was on (Plastic Ono Band) in college, but hadn’t heard it since. I listened to the song and stared out the window at the puffy white clouds. Then I listened to it again and again. I listened to that one song over and over again for the whole last hour of the flight. I didn’t read. I didn’t talk to anyone. I just looked out the window and listened.

Everyone knows that I’m a big Dexter Gordon fan. I love listening to Our Man in Paris. Dexter Gordon has such a relaxed way of playing. It’s what I want my playing to be like–laid back. Too bad there’s nothing laid back about me.

When I stick the CD in the CD player and Scrapple From The Apple starts to play, everything in the world is good. It’s one of the few instrumental CD’s that I have that I can sing along with.

My father toured Europe with Dexter Gordon long before I was born. When my mother talks about him, she always says, “Dexter was such a gentleman.” I never met him.

I remember watching Round Midnight with my father. During the movie my father kept saying, “That’s just what he was like. That’s not acting, he was just being himself.”

Whether he was a gentleman or not, I like the way he played. If you don’t have the CD, you should consider adding it to your collection.