SAD MUSIC, GREAT BIG SEA, STONE PONIES, BEATLES – RIDING THE WAYBACK MACHINE

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Have you ever heard a song that caught you up short and brought you almost to tears?  Boston to St. John — sung by Great Big Sea, does that to me, no matter how many times I hear it.  In fact, when we pass over St. John on the way to Europe and it shows up on the map on the little TV, I get weepy just hearing it in my head.  What is it about this romantic, acoustic song accompanied by a pipe and a guitar?  Just listen (this one has lyrics posted) – it’s a nice thing to end the week with.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the wonder of what music has come to mean to me, again.  Of course I was a typical teen fan, and then in my college years obsessed with Bob Dylan, the Beatles, The Doors, Cream, anything by Ellie Greenwich, anything from Motown, Linda Ronstadt (especially the Stone Ponies phase) – listen to this primo girl song:

I also loved the great folkies like Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, Joan Baez ( oh – and Peter, Paul and Mary (need I go on?) and Simon and Garfunkel — among others.  Then I went into semi-retirement.  I made mix tapes for my kids – Good Day Sunshine, Hippy Hippy Shake, Here Comes the Sun, the Garden Song, Carolina… you name it.  And we sang a lot.  But the deep, gut-wrenching feeling you get when the music drills right to the center of your soul — that all came back more recently.  And differently.  Once, my Deadhead son asked me why I had never gone to one of their concerts.  The answer was peculiar, I guess.  I heard all my music for free at marches.  And peace rallies.  Who needed to buy tickets? 

The music was, literally, the soundtrack to my life.  Every song I hear pulls a movie into my head — me on a bus to Manhattan for a march, in a boat on Paradise Pond with my boyfriend, dancing like crazy someplace or other.  Now, though, the music seems to bring the mood to me, rather than meeting it half way.  I can be moved from zero to 60 – solid to weepy – in about one chorus.  Maybe it’s the passage of time.  Maybe it’s that I hear far more of it alone.  Maybe it’s just that much of what I listen to evokes other times in my life.  Today, driving home, I had my iPod plugged into the car radio, on random shuffle, and Pete Seeger singing All My Life’s a Circle did it. Again. 

Of course, anything from the Juno soundtrack just makes me laugh.  And lots of Bruce just makes me want to dance.  It’s not all sad stuff.  I guess I should try to figure it out, but I’d rather just think I’m newly available, or RE-newly available, to those feelings.  And be grateful for the music that brings them.

HOW OLD ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU CALLING A ELDER?

Elderly_ladyWe live in a community where many of our closest friends are well under 40 – several the ages of our sons.  Because we are culturally united, age isn’t such a big deal, which is strange.  I’ve always identified very strongly as a Baby Boomer.  Born in the first year of the cohort, I cherish the experiences and adventures and acknowledge the shared rages and disappointments that bind us.  Even so, I’m struggling with my place. 

There’s a group of bloggers led by Ronni Bennett, a wonderful writer and observer, through her blog Time Goes By – and she’s working to build a community she terms "Elder Bloggers."

I hate it.  Hate it.  I admire Ronni; I’ve always been OK with where I stand in age and presence but this is tough.  I can’t decide if I’m being immature and clinging to a world I don’t belong in or I just don’t have the same sensibility.  I moved online in the early 90s, I read science fiction and love Harry Potter; I listen to all kinds of music; I cherish every experience.  When my kids were little I often felt I had more in common with their teenage babysitters than with the parents of many of their friends.

It’s not that I deny my age — or my friends who are peers.  Or my responsibilities.  I’ve had a successful career raised great, honorable and capable kids.  It’s that I cherish the energy, openness and curiosity of those whose lives are more ahead of them than behind.  I remember maybe 20 years ago when a friend of mine was about to take her youngest son to college. Eyes welling up, she said something over lunch that day that still haunts me.  "It used to be that everything in my life was about beginnings, now it seems that most of it is about endings."  It was a devastating moment.  I swore I would never feel like that.

It’s no battle really.  It’s my nature to be curious — I have a short attention span and, as my blog header says, "There’s always more."  Remaining open is easy.  Realizing that it’s sometimes time to surrender some options is harder — even, or maybe especially, stupid ones like clothes.  I have a "style."  It took years to develop – not on purpose just by trial and error.  Often, I was in the fashion moment.  I went through the 80s in leggings and tunics and arm-loads of black rubber bracelets.  Oh and Reebok high-tops and thick saggy socks.  And that was at work!

One day though, you begin looking at those cool of-the-moment clothes with the thought "I wish I were young enough to wear those" instead of "wow how much is that one?"  It’s never said out loud (or at least not by anyone you’d listen to) – you just kind of know it.   A friend of mine with daughters says it happens to moms with girls much earlier because, as she put it "you don’t want to look like you’re competing.")  I, however, resisted as long as I could, then surrendered (except for jewelry and shoes, of course.)

Music too.  I was in the loop until hip hop, then got shoved pretty far into the margins.  My kids send me music now – from Great Big Sea to Jack Johnson to Green Day and I’m grateful. But these days I don’t even know who many of the Top Ten folks are  — and don’t care. 

That doesn’t make me an elder though.  Or a grown-up.  Just a responsible adult, defined by nature and interests, not age.  So Ronni – I’m with you with great admiration as you bring all of us together and continue to build the world’s coolest Boomer+ blogroll.  But the title — the title —  not for me my girl.  At least……..not yet.