Music Is My Life

The Temptations: My Girl
Hidden in the back of my makeup drawer, safe from the everyday spills of my quick morning makeup sessions, is a broken jewelry box. This box is broken,two halves that are separated adding the character that all heirlooms should have . Its smooth wood reflects your face in its tag teamed light and dark wooden floral setting. Inside this box along the green velvets setting and just past the curving landscape of its ring holding section is an array of my “nice” jewelry. Not all of it is nice. But it is protected. From my great grandmas earring, to a bracelet my little sister made for me. Each has a special meaning or person behind it.There is one piece that particularly special. At the bottom of the larger pieces is a tiny green velvet pouch that blends perfectly into the velvet of the box itself. In this pouch is my secret treasure. It is my perfectly concealed memory. This is a bracelet that is far too tiny to wear now, for it was made for me when I was only one year old. Its tiny silver beads wrap the emerald center like a giant bear hug. I can almost smell my daddies bear hugs. Like the beads, he could swoop and surround my body as he picked me up. At my request my father would lift me to his shoulder and smile. Calling me little princess he would tickle my face with his beard and let me pull the pens from his pep boys pocket protector. My father died when I was 2 and ½. These memories are things, and yet I am not sure if they are memories of my own, or memories of stories I have heard. But I remember two things about my father I remember that bracelet, and his voice as he sang to his girl. Lyrics said "I've got sunshine on cloudy day.With my girl.I've even got the month of May With my girl".dancing with me, even though my feet were no where near the ground.

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Billy Joel: Uptown Girl
There is a tightly wound string that wraps around the hardcover of the book. Inside the pages are a yellow-white aging with the acid of the years.A tiny inscription reads "to my babies" in my mothers swirly mixture of cursive and print. There are tiny rips and tears where pictures or items have been removed. This is the book that tells the story of an uptown girl(my mother) and a downtown man(my father). At least that is what my mother tells me every time we look at it. I flip my hands through each section laughing at my parents near identical perms, and peering in awe at my mothers near bursting tummy in several of the pictures. On several of the pages are quotes from Billy Joel songs, most of them from Uptown girl.My mother said that my dad Barry would always sing that song to her, saying "She'll see Im not so tough.Just because Im in love with an uptown girl". He was so sure that she was too good for him. This scrapbook is a love story that was lost, a romance novel cut short. The last few pages are bittersweet showing our whole family, my mom, my dad, my brother, and I with my sister in my mothers stomach. It is one of the only family photos we have of all of us before he died. I know that scrapbook the same way I know my own memories. It is something that ties my mother and I together. In those aged pages are thumb prints of me at every age. That book and this song have followed me through ever major event of my life when I am with my mother. The chorus of "You know Im in love with an uptown girl"is like a reminder that no matter where I go I have that ground to go back to. No matter what age I am, my mother and I will always have those pages of memory, and those moments together remembering how she was an "uptown girl," who looked for "a downtown man."


The Used: Blue and Yellow
I have a mixed tape. It has just one song on it. The first beats of this song are slow and steady. The lyrics calm me and make me smile even while my eyes swell with tears. This song is his favorite, and for our five month anniversary he gave it to me. In the age of mp3’s and ipods, a tape is ancient history. The tape is older, it has been used and reused, and the tape inside has the look of something that has been stretched and rewoud. It has been flipped and renamed and restarted too many times to count. This tape is not a family heirloom or an artifact with information that will save people. It is a silly piece to some, in fact many of my friends mock me for it. They see its blue smiley face sticker with blushing cheeks peeling at the corner and ask what it is for. But it’s a secret. I keep this tape for memory only. On it is the voice of my first love. His fiteen year old teen angst voice is telling me a story. He tells me the way he loves the song, "its all in how you mix the two" he points out. . For certain lyrics he interjects a comments to remind me that this is a love song,because he loves me. It plays and his laughter echoes as he talks about the times we have had together, unknowingly giving me a solid memory of who we were. On this tape is so much of my life with friends and family and thoughts. Wound and rewound the way I have thought as rethought the things I went through. This song and tape are from a weird time, like that transition from tape to CD , switching to high school was like feeling around in the dark for a light switch. There is so much growing up done. A giant leap was made, and I lost him in the process. Like the song says "you never would have thought in the end how amazing it feels just to live again". There are some days when I want to go back to being so easily loving, and so truthfully loved. And holding that little piece of plastic is like feeling my memory flood back. I like that tape.


Mercy Me:I can only imagine
Many people are shocked to see the things that line the walls of my room. I guess I don't give off the same vibe that my possessions do. The most shocking of my objects seems to be a crown from a pageant I was in. This crown is not of great strength, it is sterling silver with rhinestones on it. Through its crisscross of diamonds and triangles the light plays tricks with your eyes. I can go back in a moments notice to that pageant, but it is not the competition I remember. I remember my dad. My dad was my escort on that stage, I remember because it is one of the only times I have seen him in a suit. He put on that thick grey three piece suit, and shined his black shoes. He tucked in a small pocket square that matched my dress perfectly, and he walked with me to the backstage area. There was the set of crowns, taunting the participants. The light played off of the tiara bouncing a kaleidoscope of light back to me. My dad was looking at me as the lights for the stage darkened. We reached the crest of stage, and those lights hit us like the reflection of the tiara ( multiplied by ten). I couldn't see the audience, and the girls were all turned away from me. The chorus of this song hit, "I can only imagine.What my eyes will see.When your face.Is before me" and my dad leaned over to me and told me he thought I was beautiful, and that no matter what,he was proud of me."I can only imagine" how jealous the other girls must have been, because I was the luckiest girl in the room.


Blink 182: Adams Song
Some people may wonder why I have a clown nose and a funeral announcement in the same box. I guess it is pretty strange. A clown nose is fluffy, its red material looks as though it holds the air around it in a gymnasium of fun. But in one squeeze you can extract all the fun from within it. The nose is seemingly whole at first glance. Cut almost perfectly as though sculpted by the prophet of clown noses. Yet somewhere in that perfection there is a cut, a small place where something should be, that is not. I guess that is where the funeral announcement comes in. No sixteen or seventeen year old should receive a funeral announcement. This one is beautiful, it is bright and cheerful. The top corner is hole punched carefully by hand. This hole is just large enough to place a short pink ribbon lovingly tied to a beautiful picture of a beautiful girl. I chose this song to remember my friends and the impact they had on my life. Though they were roughly a year apart, the death of my friend Katie and the suicide of my friend Brian seem simaltaniously engraved in my mind. This song is about people who feel lost, and the people who are trying to help them. Like the pictures on the wall behind the band,their funerals were filled with pictures of them, smiling and happy, they "laughed the loudest, who would have known".
These objects are beautiful, but they are both missing something. That something are the people who are missing from my life. These friends are tucked away gently into the corner of a wall of my memories. Like the video I zoom onto them often. For them I place that clown nose on my face, filling that small hole now, like I could not before. And I live my life the strongest I can for them, I laugh and I remember. Much like the songs lyrics, I am so sorry that they are gone.


Snow Patrol: Chasing Cars
Falling in love is hard. But it is also worth it. You just have to remind yourself of why you fell in love with them in the first place. Sometimes, I forget the meaning of the ring on my left hand, meant to remind me of the wonderful boy who is mine. It is a small ring, dainty, but tough at the same time. It has a sheen a metallic that embraces and reflects simultaneously. It is the circle of things that we have gone through; he an I. There are scratches where there have been some rough spots. Sometimes it slides off my finger a bit, and I have to make sure I hold onto it a little tighter. It curves a bit at the center, where the two ends have different paths. But always they come back. Always those two sides find that peace in the center. That place where we can lay and forget the world that surrounds us. Three diamonds. Discret and minuet to some, mean the world. They are the past, present, and future. Rings are tricky objects. They are strong and withstand many days and nights, but only if you care for them. Like memories you have to take them out every once in a while and polish them off. In this same way you have to be able to look at your love and remember why it is that it means so much to you. The lyrics "those three words are said to much, they are not enough" explain our love perfectly. My ring reminds me of all the things I sense that cannot be vocalized between us. The minuet he gave me that ring and promised me your love, I knew that I would always have a safe place. A center of peace where "We don't need Anything Or anyone" . So "If I lay here. If I just lay here." I know he would "lie with me and just forget the world".


John Lennon: Imagine
Sometimes it just seems so bizarre to me to see what people can do. In the hands of man things can be created or destroyed. Those hands have the capability to pull open a ripped and torn worn box. This box is full,from side to side, are pencils. They are my drawing pencils, that have the ability to work with or against my pure paper.These pencils have taken the liberty to climb upon each other to reach out to those hands. They want to help. There are a million different types of these pencils, in this box there are at least seven different types. These pencils have the same things inside of them,its just that something on their outside has given them a different name. With these pencils I can raise up visions of politics and action. With these hands and the help of these pencils, I could make anything. My art can speak volumes. I could create and add to my world something of the greatest value. I could ,like Lennon did,imagine all the people, and show them to you. With these same hands I could crush the creations around me. I could snap the pencils that do not follow my direction and command. Imagine for a moment. Imagine that people were pencils. How quickly we throw them away. How easily we destroy them in the name of our creation. I have never heard of anyone who took this idea to heart as much as Lennon and the Beatles. He asked us to imagine all the people, living for today. Throughout my time at college, I have learned alot, and it is all about people. It frustrates me to see people hurting eachother, when we could live in peace. Like Lennon, "you may say Im a dreamer, but I am not the only one". Dreamers are the people who take the pencils in their hands and create action for peace and understanding. And there is nothing wrong with a little dreaming, and a little art. I hope some day " the world will live as one".


Spring Awakening Original Broadway Cast: The Song of Purple Summer
When the mp3 players first came out, I didn't understand what was so great about them, I mean yeah they held a lot of music,but so did mixed CDs. I saw I pod commercials, with silhouettes rocking out to their music, but quite honestly I don't think that properly explains the amazing qualities of an I pod.When I received my metal personal jukebox before college I realized. This is not just a musical device. This is an object that in a moments notice can change your mood. You unravel the white earphones, ergonomically created to stay in your ears. In my case, my I pod has a cover that matches my mood in black white or blue plastic to protect it from the harms of the daily grind. Mine has been along side me this semester, through charcoal and paint, sun and rain and snow. The thing about this silver piece of magic has nothing to do with its 2 GB music holding potential, or its smooth scrolling buttons. It is about that freedom. Like the agony of adolescence, and I pod is yours and yours alone. Other people can attempt to understand, but they cannot truly see how the perfect combination of a inspiring soundtrack with the heart pounding screams of " Totally Fucked" can make you want to scream and jump.Its easy for you to forget them and feel that music and that movement, that love pump through you. Only in the world of your I pod are you in control. You can make or break your mood. Those people who piss you off or hurt you can dissapeare because you can play your Spring Awakening as loud as you want, knowing that you are mocking them with every note that is sung. And if that doesn't work you can repeat the sound until they are gone, or untill your anarchy is properly displayed by the smug look on your face. So jam and and spin that white dial until the mood of your Ipod reads, free.