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28 april 2002

jesus, not one to be left out of the action figure market, is introduced to the bobbing hula dancer on the next shelf.

sounding it out

I believe very much that as you go along in years, you acquire a soundtrack for your life. It starts small with stuff like the alphabet song, and the Sesame Street theme. If you grew up in church, a few of those probably stuck, as well. Jesus Loves the Little Children. Jesus loves me, this I know....and so on. At that age, you listen with no knowledge or regard for what's on the charts. You sing with abandon.

Thankfully, music captures us before self-consciousness does.

When I was seven, I had my first communion. In my family, first communions were second only to weddings in order of importance. Aunts, uncles, and grandparents traveled from all over Indiana to take up a few rows at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in downtown Kendallville. By golly, little Kimmy was getting a sacrament. They weren't going to miss this. Mom had made me a little white dress and veil. My catechism class had rehearsed this moment for months. In the eyes of the church, I was now a full-fledged member of the church. I could partake.

After the church ceremony, the photographs, and cheek-pinching (because, my, what a big girl I now was)--it was time for dinner. We returned home where, to my surprise, there were also presents waiting for me--lots of them! Now that I was a big girl in the eyes of the church, I guess my parents figured it was time for big girl music to enter my world.

They gave me a record player, a little red one with a plug-in microphone. And records.

I think this was what experts call "creating a monster".

One of my first records was this 33 1/2, filled with oldies from my parents' high school days. I listened to that thing until it became scratched and warped beyond recognition. One song, in particular, stuck. For months, I sang Blue Suede Shoes until Mom was surely ready to put the record player (and me) in the garage. I knew it forward, backward, and how to wiggle my knobby little legs like Elvis. I was a seven-year-old, Carl-Perkins'-inspired piece of work. Between me, all those oldies I memorized, and my re-enactments of various Bugs Bunny cartoons, I'm thankful that I wasn't adopted out to the Catholic Home for Incorrigible Hams.

Or maybe Mom just agreed that your first grown-up song is a big deal. Like communion, only backed up by rock guitar.

A person's soundtrack is composed of a lot of stuff. Mix tapes from old boyfriends and girlfriends. The voices of old overseas pen pals. The roar of your first car's engine. Answering machine messages. High school cheers. Your first slow dance. Camp songs. Weddings. The vast silences between all of it. I remember those, too.

When I was in high school, I baffled my family and friends by cultivating an obsession with folk rock. It was me, my bad 80's haircut, and my Simon and Garfunkel. You'd think that with 80's rock in vogue again, I might get sentimental for those sounds. Nah. I never much liked them to begin with. A few songs punctuated moments here and there, but I was happy to leave most of it.

As I've grown older, I've taken ownership of my music. It's become less background to my moments, and more of a narrative. I'm much less interested in filling my home with the sounds of old boyfriends and moments past. Those are best left to chance encounters during late-night radio scans while driving up I-77, you know? A fleeting surprise instead of endless loop.

Unless Paul Simon has made a comeback single that week, I'm not much able to tell you what's in the top 40. The soundtrack to my life, it turns out, is the stuff you hear when you press your ear to the ground, or to the sky. It is organic sounds. Voices. Acoustic guitar. Strings. It's music that requires little more than you, a few friends, and some instruments. It's jazz, not fusion. It's bluegrass, not country. It's the music you find close to the earth, close to old communities, and close to the bone. It's our story.

I think we underestimate the power of our own soundtrack, if we acknowledge it at all. I can leave all of my notes behind when I leave this life, and that's fine. They will tell the story well enough. The rest of me, perhaps I can burn to CD. Stamp my sounds to the air, in case my footprints get washed away.