The Songs

I turn the music on and the familiar but long missing notes float on the air. I remember the pain of that melody. This is the first time in many years that I've been brave enough to listen.  I listen to the songs and at first I feel nothing. Then, the days, months, years begin to fold in on one another like accordion pleats on beautiful paper. The years fold in on each other and I’m driven to my knees fighting regrets.

He was a good boy/man. I can see his eyes holding mine and I can see the hardness of my heart hiding the tender pit buried deep inside. I can see his heart breaking as my thoughts swirled madly within me trying desperately to find a solid ground. The solid ground was gone though. The solid ground had left when I fled. I had run so far and so long. All that was left there to stand on was the whirlwind.

The other was kind too but I wasn't looking for kind. I was looking for powerful. I was looking for someone powerful enough to calm the whirlwind and how could that young man even begin to understand what he was up against.

The songs play and the accordion folds open and close. Little glimpses of pain and anger and hope and dancing. The night I danced in defiance of all their eyes. The day I saw the end and the beginning wrapped up in one poor girl’s eyes.

I discovered this trick of music when I came back.  I came back and the hymns I hadn't heard in years came back. First the music then the words with all their power filled my heart/mind. I recovered the memories of those days in moments. I didn't need a hymnal. I had memory. With the hymns came the verses. All those words long hidden in my heart/mind came back to the surface. Ten years of memory verses floating to the top after ten years of flight. 

So then the lyrics of long forgotten memories came bubbling up. Could I listen to the music? Could I hear it and stay in the place I am? Is it too dangerous to walk those streets again? But memory is not a monster. Memory is only memory. I chose to listen. I chose to listen and battle the demons and the pain. I remembered more than just hurt. I remembered freedom.

Freedom is more than just knowing you are safe. Freedom is holding the accordion folded years in your hand. Holding those years in your hands and feeling the pain and shame and laughter. That is all there is.  This life where we have walked is part of who we are. The music made us. The music connects us to that place in time but that place in time is not now. That place in time is just the past. Each memory a building block that led to now and now is a beautiful place. Now is the place where even the songs that sang of failure ring with the truth that the failure led us here.

The whirlwind rages still but does not touch me. The whirlwind wraps around me and I cling to the everlasting arms, safe in the moment.  I unfold the accordion pleated years. I sing all the songs. I smile and the man I love smiles with me. Living in this moment is harder than living in any other moment but it is all well. The pain and regret of the past is only in the past. The laughter and joy of the past is only in the past. Time comes and goes folded and wrapped up in itself. The whirlwind blows. Life continues. And we sing the songs.