Songs that Induce Flashbacks

Please join me on a trip down my aural memory lane.....

A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton

It was the spring of 2002, campus was starting to warm up, and the 8th graders were in the  middle of prepping for the best 8th grade play in the history of Thomas Jefferson School (possibly in the history of high school plays ever).  We had just completed our dress rehearsal and had piled into the art room in the dank basement of Main to do a final prop check when the radio came on.  Andy Matuschak started singing first, almost under his breath, but as he got into the song, he got louder, and we all joined in.  We were each in our own little world, worried about the first performance that was looming and avoiding the presence of Miss Fairbank like the plague, but we all realized at some point that we had reached a moment of perfect harmony.  It was beautiful.  And when the song ended, we didn't speak of it.  We just kept on with what needed to get done.  Remembering moments like this make me miss my class.

It Makes Me Ill - *N Sync

One of my roommates in 7th grade was a freshman named Min Hee Han, a transplant from South Korea who was new to the United States.  This was the only song she had in English on her computer, so we listened to it a lot…basically any time I needed a momentary repireve from K-Pop.  I still know every single word, and I gleefully sing along whenever I happen across it.

Canned Heat - Jamiroqui

This will forever be the Napoleon Dynamite song for me.  Probably for many people, really, but I don't just connect it to the movie.  I very clearly remember curling up in bed with my high school boyfriend, in his dorm, and watching this movie.  A few days before, I had tried to teach him to dance - really, it turned into a lesson on basic rhythm which he still failed - and I had continually told him that it wasn't about looking amazing, it was all about not giving a damn what others thought.  He didn't understand what I meant until he saw Napoleon shaking his ass in snow boots in front of the whole student body.  Watching the final dance in Napoleon Dynamite with him was hilarious, and endearing, and I will cherish it as a totally light and funny moment in our otherwise often tumultuous relationship.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life - Eric Idle

This is another one that is tied to my high school boyfriend.  The song itself doesn't mean a lot to me, but the circumstances around it will stick with me forever.  He had a single his senior year, and we had pushed the two bunk beds together into a king-size bed for, ya know, convenience, but we really only ever slept on one side of it.  Anyway, one day while he was playing soccer with his friends, my best friend at the time, her boyfriend, and I all decided to sit on the bed and watch Life of Brian.  I was on the side Blake slept on, and the other two were on the spare bed, as it were.  Blake came in from playing soccer and initially balked at us being there, until his best friend told him to man up, stop his bitching, and go climb in bed with his girlfriend.  So he did.  He climbed in bed and cuddled right behind me.  To be honest, I don't even remember the end of the movie, other than hearing the song, because he wrapped his arms around me and whispered in my ear "When are those two leaving?"

Innocent - Our Lady Peace

The first guy I was serious about in college was obsessed with this song.  It meant the world to him because he was dealing with some pretty serious family issues at the time, and because it meant so much to him, and I heard it incessantly for a while, I will forever flash back to those days when this song comes on.

Playground Love - Air

This song was featured in the movie The Virgin Suicides, a Sofia Coppola film about a family of teenage sisters and the boys who were obsessed with them.  It deals with love, lust, grief, and fear in very moving ways.  It is one of two movies ever that have affected me so deeply that it changed my mood for several days after I saw it.  This one caused me to think a lot.  The other genuinely brought back my depression.  I like this film more now because of it, and this song always takes me back to that first viewing.

I Say A Little Prayer For You - the Cast of My Best Friend's Wedding

This was one of only a couple DVDs we had in our dorm in 7th grade, and thus we watched it incessantly.  We were so obsessed, actually, that we made up a dance to the song…which I could probably still do.  Those totally carefree moments of dancing, singing, and falling into a heap on the floor in laughter are what I miss most about TJ.

Sayonara, and peace out.

I've always had problems saying goodbye.  It's always "see you later" or "talk to you soon".  Sometimes, I say it in a foreign language.  Au revoir!  Ciao!  Hasta luego!  If that doesn't work, "byebye" or "miss ya" may fill in.  But very rarely do I say the word "goodbye" as such.  It seems so formal, so definite.

Goodbye has always scared me.

It's not like I thought that speaking the words would make any separation permanent.  I knew words don't hold any magical powers to be released when spoken.  It just never feels right.

It wasn't just speaking them either.  Just the thought of goodbye intimidated me.  Saying goodbye to someone - admitting that you may not talk to them for a long time and possibly never speak to them again - was frightening.

Thoughts During a Football Game

Today, I had the opportunity to watch the Rams play on TV, because they were playing my new local team - the Packers. (boo, hiss).  These are my thoughts.

1. Do football players really think it's a good idea to hit each other in the head after a good play?  I know you've all been concussed before.  Let's not make it worse.

2. Aaron Rodgers is stretching his neck and the announcer says that the pillows in the STL hotel must not have been good enough.  Right, because it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that he JUST GOT SACKED.

3. The Saints are losing!

4. I really like GB's pink shoes.

Time

Here's a question I like to ask people when I'm 5/8 drunk: Let's say you had the ability to make a very brief phone call into your own past.  You are (somehow) given the opportunity to phone yourself as a teenager; in short, you will be able to communicate with the fifteen-year-old version of you.  However, you will only be able to get to talk to your former self for fifteen seconds.  As such, there's no way you will be able to explain who you are, where or when you're calling from, or what any of this lunacy is supposed to signify.  You will only be able to give the younger version of yourself a fleeting, abstract message of unclear origin.

What would you say to yourself during these fifteen seconds?

                                                            - Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur, p. 57

Chuck Klosterman is one of the very few authors who can inspire me enough to close a book, stare off into space, and contemplate what I just read.  This is perhaps not the best thing for him, because it takes me forever (relatively speaking) to finish a book, so I haven't read as much of his work as I want to.  It's great for me though, because his thoughts do what very few people can - they actually force me to think about the world.  Not only force…they make me want to sit and stare and think.  As someone who can't sit still for very long, who is constantly multi-tasking and mulling over a dozen things at any given time, it takes a hell of a lot for something to slow me down.  For something to make me want to cease all activity and to just think about a specific topic?  Well, that's essentially unheard of.  And yet, Mr. Klosterman seems to have it down to a science.  I'd love to have a beer with the guy and chat, but the odds of that are pretty damn low.  I'd probably end up sitting, slack-jawed, listening to his genius anyway; I'd be a horrible companion and he'd probably think I was mental.  Ah well, a girl can dream.

So now I direct your attention to the above quote, which (if you are a normal person) you read first, and then got confused as to why the first paragraph had absolutely nothing to do with time travel.  This is the most recent passage that caused me to zone out and process.  Klosterman spends an entire chapter in his book Eating the Dinosaur on the implausibility of time travel, which is perhaps-not-so-coincidentally written in a non-linear fashion. The entire chapter is brilliant, but this specific section really struck me.  Probably because it asked me a question.

What would you say to yourself during these fifteen seconds? 

My first answer came to me instantaneously.  It wouldn't even take fifteen seconds.  Mr. Klosterman, I thought, I have beaten your game!  I'd just tell myself that medicine was the wrong field.  Maybe even simpler.  Don't apply to medical school.  Yes, that would do it…that would be what I needed to hear.  But just as quickly, I flashed back to my fifteen-year-old self.  She probably would believe such a phone call was a joke.  Maybe even a hallucination brought on by too much work and not enough sleep.

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The phone rings.  Amber searches for the cordless and answers with a short “Yeah?”

“Amber.  Listen up.  Don’t mourn for Pluto.  Just come up with a new mnemonic.”

Amber wrinkles her forehead.  “Uhh, what are you talking about?”

The phone disconnects.  Amber drops it on the counter and shrugs.  She goes back to cooking.

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So I thought again.  How could I make it more clear to past-me that medicine was the wrong field?  I could say that the 6-year program was a bad idea, but even that might just come across as a challenge to past-me.  Could I point myself toward psychology?  I could try, but fifteen-year-old me wouldn't understand why, and I wouldn't have time to explain.  Ok, Chuck, I am now seeing the conundrum.

It was here that another thought struck me.  Say that I was able to say that medicine was wrong and psychology was a better choice.  Say that fifteen-year-old me believed it and went along with it.  How could she ever know for sure medicine was wrong?  Would I really want to create a perpetual sense of doubt in myself?  That sounds thoroughly unhealthy. 

So, hypothesize with me again.  The phone call works.  Past-me somehow believes me, and I save myself the 4 years of misery and debt I spent in medical school.  The things that would change would be innumerable.  Many of the friendships - pretty damn close to family - I have were forged in the hours of lectures, labs, patient rooms, libraries, and Starbucks that medical students are forced to endure.  I can't imagine my life without them.  Here's when you say, "But Amber, you'd make entirely different friends, they'd surely be just as close, and you'd never know what you were missing.  That's a stupid thing to get caught up on."  And you'd be right.  But the fact is, I wouldn't want to lose them (but it's not a loss if you never knew them, you say).  But I do know them.  And if past-me grows into present-me and doesn't know them, somehow she has managed to lose something from her future.  Something that has kept her grounded, sane, and happy for over 6 years.  How could I do that to myself?

Then I got stuck in common time travel conundrum, one that Klosterman spends a significant amount of words on.  If fifteen-year-old me did believe me, wouldn't that change the me I am today?  It would have to, somehow.  So then if past-me changed career paths, there would be no reason for me to make said phone call.  And now we're stuck in a loop that really only has one viable solution.  Constantly splintering, simultaneously existing, alternate realities.  I kind of like this idea…if only there was a way to peak through a portal and see how the other timelines were doing.  That may just make the what-ifs worse though, knowing for sure what was best and having no way to fix it.

I reread Klosterman’s quote.  Obviously, I thought, I had just chosen the wrong message.  Maybe something not so life-changing could be easier and still have a positive impact on past-me.  I went through several options.

Don't trust him when he smiles that way.

Make sure you finish that paper.

When you go get stitches, make them x-ray your hand twice.

That fight isn't worth it.  Stand up and walk away.

Go above his head; make him stop harrassing you.

Don't let him convince you to do something you don't want to.

Every one I tried, ultimately led me to the same conclusion.  I had no way to know how such a message could be believed, or the effect it might possibly have.  So I got even less specific.

She’s not worth your, or his, time.

There are more people out there.

Don’t pull your punch.

But, see, these all could cause ripples that create waves, changing the tide of my past and recreating the future/my present.  It simply wouldn't do.  By this point, I wanted to simultaneously shake Mr. Klosterman's hand and punch him in the face.  Damn him for outsmarting me!

I thought more deeply about me at fifteen, too, trying to recall just who I was then.  Counting back to figure out what grade I was in at fifteen (I can never remember anything by my own age), the memories returned.  I was a nearly suicidal, honor roll-making, varsity-sport-playing, not-so-healthy-relationship-having, future doctor who was functioning on absolutely no sleep, raising two children, and running a household of five.  She was not in a happy place, and she felt completely cut off from the world.  In her mind, whether she was right or not, no one understood just how much pressure she was under.  Klosterman had picked a great age to contact.  Who at fifteen wouldn’t kill for some insight into the future?  That’s the girl who I wanted to reach out to.  That’s the girl that needed my help.

I gave it one last stab, convinced it was a paradox and that I'd never have an answer.  Then it came to me.  Unfortunately, it's the same message that we've been hearing for months and years now.  Of course, fifteen-year-old me wouldn't know that.  And it's vague, and unclear, and not enough to change my entire life trajectory.  But it's exactly what I wanted so desperately to hear back then.

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The phone rings.  Frazzled, Amber scrambles to find the cordless phone, locating it under a pile of homework that Joey needs reviewed.  As she shoves the phone between her cheek and her shoulder, she answers with a short "Hello?" and turns back to check on the homemade pasta she is preparing.  She hears a strangely familiar voice start to rush.

" Amber, I need to tell you something.  Are you listening?”

"Who is this?" she responds, returning her focus to the stove.  Their voices overlap.

"You need to know this.  Life is hard, and I know you want to give up, but you can't. There are people who love you.  People rely on you.  And someday you will look back and see that even the worst days were worth living.  You're strong.  You can survive.  It gets better."

“Who—“ The phone disconnects.  “Hello?” She sets the phone on the counter and stares at it, feeling tears well up.  She doesn’t know who the caller is, but she loves her in that moment and hopes they'll meet someday.

The other Amber is crying too.

I'm Just Here.

For years, I told myself I would never do it.  I would not be that person.  I couldn't bear the thought; I didn’t want people to look at me, judging me. I refused to be the person sitting in the theater by myself, trying to pass the time before the previews with no one to talk to, no one to laugh with. 

I had been lucky.  Once I moved out on my own, I rarely missed out on seeing a movie that I wanted to see.  I could always find someone to go with me.  I had a network of sorts.  Niju for action movies, Tina for dramas, Nida for pretty much whatever struck our fancy at the moment.  That was the normal rotation - the core group - and then there were several others who I knew would be up for seeing something if the mood struck.  As a cinephile vehemently against sitting in the dark theater alone, it was a perfect position to be in.  Until it wasn't.