“Music has the power to move a person between different realities: from a broken body into a soaring spirit, from a broken heart into the connection of shared love, from death into the memory and movement of life."
Dr. Deforia Lane
I sit swinging back and forth. I haven’t been on a swing in a long time. The breeze is blowing and for a moment I get lost in yesterdays and its like I’m there again. On that old tire swing, in the middle of the courtyard, at my grandmothers ranch house. Where there is nothing to do for a girl but what is expected of her - clean and help cook. I was too young for either task so I played outside most of the time. Entertaining myself.
In the morning when all the men were gone to the fields, and all the women ever did was cleaned and cooked I sat out on the swing out of the shooing of my aunts who never seemed to stop sweeping and mopping. So swinging, very close to the opened kitchen window, while the aroma of fresh corn tortillas and my grandmothers humming filled the air.
My grandmother never sang words, just a tune. And depending her mood, the tune. I can still hear her now, humming a melody, never the words. I could never make out the songs, they were songs before my time, songs her heart new and her mind held. Songs that didn’t need words, were the melody itself was enough to make you remember. To make her remember.
At times they made her smile, at other times they made her pick up the side of her rebozo to wipe off the tears. But they were her songs. Songs from her heart, the ones that told her story.
On the nights when the moon was high and the house was too hot and dark we’d lay a blanket and sit around under the stars. The women talking and gossiping, the men relaxing and telling stories of their dreams and their ambitions. The kids running around playing and chasing each other.
But not me. I was never one for running around. Instead, you’d find me on my stomach perked on both elbows listening to their tales about lands and people I knew nothing about. And the guitar would be brought out and the singing began. And my mom would belch from her soul songs of lost loves and deception. Songs of lies and frustration. Songs of the soul that could only be cured by a bottle and the deep and hollow sounds of a guitar. It was then when I learned every sad note, and every long string. Every deep twang and every hollow lyric. Where I learned about anger, and how jealousy could kill a man. How love could overcome mountains, and sweet words could bring up laughter and joy. I learned about lost loves, and reconciliations. About mistakes and redemptions.
Today, my mother is so much like her mother that most of the time she is singing. With every chore or from room to room. She sings her songs, songs that make her smile or remember. Her sweet voice fills the room as her soul speaks the words and the melody carries the memories.
Generation through generation, every fringe of a rebozo, every string in a guitar, every open window, and every space in time has been filled with a melody that reaches deep into every corner of our souls and has the influence to move us. One song has the power to take you back to The Moment. To that place. Hearing a familiar melody can bring a sudden surge of emotions you weren't expecting to feel. One song has the power to make you laugh, to make you cry, to make you miss someone, to make you remember. Within a song you can lose yourself in memories of days gone by. Sometimes saying the things we dare not say but very much believe. Sometimes being one of the many songs on the playlist of our lives.
Comments