Framing the Sound

Category: birthdays

  • When Music Finds the Memory

    Why do memories flood my mind when I listen to a particular piece of music?

    I had never owned — or even heard — anything by Cigarettes After Sex until recently. For reasons still unbeknownst to me, I picked up their album Cry. Soon after the needle touched the wax, something unexpected happened.

    Memories of a seventeen-year-old kid — a boy who knew nothing about anything — began an invasion so powerful that before I even realized what was happening, I was in tears.

    Perhaps I’m more emo than I realize.

    I suppose 69¾ trips around the sun doesn’t necessarily mean we understand our emotions any better than we did after the first seventeen. Time adds years, not always clarity.

    As I continue restocking my vinyl library, I find myself drawn to new music by bands I know nothing about. Something nudges me toward a record I’ve never heard before. I bring it home, lower the needle… and suddenly flashbacks from as far back as the ’60s begin playing in my mind.

    Genre doesn’t seem to matter.

    About an hour ago I listened to Cold Blood by Lydia Pense. Within seconds, I was back in high school in Louisville and Greensburg, Kentucky — moving to funk and blues I had never actually heard before. I still have no idea where that record came from. It’s odd how music sometimes finds me without an invitation.

    The same thing happens with present-day artists.

    The first time I heard Alyssa Hankey sing and play County Seat, I was transported to around 1973 — the year I quit school and eloped. I had promised my girlfriend I would quit and get a job if she would marry me. Neither of us had the slightest idea what we were doing.

    But we did it anyway.

    We drove across the Kentucky–Tennessee border with two of our best friends as witnesses to see a justice of the peace. I did have a license.

    It was the love that wasn’t licensed.

    Music has a way of unlocking rooms in the house of memory we didn’t even know were still there. A chord, a voice, a rhythm — and suddenly the past is not past at all. It is present, breathing, and sometimes weeping.

    Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to both sound and image.

    A photograph can freeze a moment.

    A song can resurrect one.

    And somewhere between the needle and the shutter, I keep discovering that the heart remembers more than the mind ever could.

  • On Waiting, Warm Weather, and the Passing of Time

    I’ve heard it practically all my life that time passes faster as you get older. January is already history, and I could swear it was only January 1 yesterday.

    In my youth, I remember having to wait for a certain time, day, or month to arrive before this or that event. Back then, it felt like years before that day finally came. Waiting for something good to happen meant everything to me and my siblings. Anticipation had weight. It stretched time.

    I mentioned in my last blog post that this year marks my 70th trip around the sun. Reaching the downhill side of life’s mountain arrived far faster than I ever imagined it would.

    We’re planning another trip this year—one or two more National Parks. This time, we’ve decided to look closer to home. I’d head west again in a heartbeat, but my wife prefers less driving time, and that’s just fine with me.

    We’re waiting for the warm months to arrive and will choose our destination before then. But this waiting for warm weather feels like it’s taking forever—almost the way it did when I was a kid.

    And that? That’s a good thing.

    A sandstone butte just outside Badlands National Park.

  • 2026

    On May 12 of this year, I’ll have completed 70 trips around the sun.

    But it only seems like…?

    I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because I can’t keep them.

    I probably could if I took them seriously. But at my age, taking things seriously—like a New Year’s resolution—has gotten a lot harder to do, and I think I know why.

    As you age, your outlook on life changes. You begin to realize you’re not going to live forever, and you can’t take anything with you when you leave. Those two hard facts are the only things I take seriously.

    Seriously though…

    My family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and my photography—along with my recent return to vinyl records and tape listening—are things I place great value on. But I can’t take any of them with me either when I check out.

    When the credits play, remember that they were written by me.

  • Birth dates; just a meaningless reminder?

    69 trips around the sun. Do I need a reminder on May 12 every year? Are trees reminded yearly of their first glance of the world from their undergound birthplace? Are birds shown their yearly anniversary of when they hatched? Do whales, sharks, snakes, spiders and every other living creature on this Pale Blue Dot get a yearly reminder?

    I think there should be a law of some sort that states: “No person, animal, or any living creature past the age of 40 shall not be reminded of date of birth.” Call me a cynic if you want (I’ve had to deal with that recently) but I no longer want or need to be reminded of my age.

    It’s irrelevant. But thanks for all the birthday wishes anyway. Please do me a favor if you can…

    Next year, instead of sending “Happy Birthday” wishes, send me some cold hard cash, in paper form, not coin. A couple of Washingtons isn’t too much to ask!