Amazing how a song can transport you back in time.
My daughter and I were at the commissary self check-out, the ‘operator’ bleating at me to “re-scan your item and place it on the belt” and suddenly I heard it, a song on the never-ending track of supermarket music…
Sailing takes me away…to where I’ve always heard it could be...
For a split second, I was 11 again, riding in my uncle’s car, windows rolled down to the hot New Mexico summer wind. I closed my eyes as I felt for a brief second the carefreeness of that moment as I dipped my hand up and down outside the car door, savoring the breeze against my skin.
*BEEP*
The automatic checkout made an impatient noise at me, and I restarted scanning the groceries. (What is so “automatic” about it if the real-life human cashier has to constantly clear it for me to continue? Just proof that machines won’t ever run the world.)
The funny thing about “Sailing” is that when I heard it, I had never been in a sailboat, much less even seen an ocean yet at that point in my life. So it’s not that I could identify at all with the song; I just loved the music. There was a peacefulness about it that appealed to me. And the sound of it now takes me back to that time in my life, people–many gone, now–and places.
And I wonder..what sounds will bring my children abruptly back to the now? I hope they’re happy ones.
Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see…Believe me.
(“Sailing” by Christopher Cross)
