Christina ~ May 3

 

It’s hard to write when I feel down, flat, like nothing interests me, nothing is worth the trouble, like I’ve written and written these little pieces to death, that I have nothing more to say, that the guardrails are up and I don’t want to spew out . . . spew out what, I don’t know. I came to a stop and there is nothing. I sometimes get a jolt of happiness, a feeling that anything is possible, when I drive on a curving, twisting country road, a song blasting from my always changing playlist, a song that brings me joy, that gives me what must some sort of chemical jolt. I wish I knew enough about music to know what it is about certain songs, sung by certain singers, that can give me that. My son might be able to tell me, for he knows an enormous amount about music, both as a musician and as the owner of a record store in Boston that sells music of every type, from everywhere in the world, but he’s so impatient with me, so disregarding most of the time that if I were to play for him some of the songs that make me happy, he’d probably criticize my musical taste, although I know he'd approve of Tracy Chapman and Pavarotti singing “Baby, Can I Hold You Tonight,” maybe at Tommy Ellison’s “Trying to Get to Heaven,” but he might sneer at my most recent and to me, unexpected, favorite, Elvis Presley’s “Always On My Mind.” Or maybe not. It’s hard to know.