Sentimental Journey.

In the summer of 1986, while Journey’s Escape was spinning on my turntable, a boy broke it off with me over the phone. It’s actually quite a bit more complicated than that, but considering that I’m on excellent terms with everyone involved and have no hard feelings myself (as expected, considering that was more than 25 years ago AND it was high school!), I won’t elaborate on the gruesome details. Stone in Love was playing (of course), and as my adolescent heart shattered into pieces, that song seeped into all the cracks and fissures and became one with my agony.

By the time I reached the anger stage of my grief, I wasn’t sure if I was more infuriated at the boy or the fact that an album I loved was destroyed through its symbiotic relationship with my rejection.

ouch!

It took time, but I eventually healed on both fronts and was able to hear Steve Perry’s voice again without reverting to the fetal position. 
 
But something funny happened today: Stone in Love came on at random while I was at work, it released a trigger, and I cried. Not inconsolably or anything. Just a swelling in the throat, some heat in the cheeks, and a couple of drops.

What surprised me was not the crying. (I actually do that all the time, as most of you know. Not because I’m perpetually sad, but because it is therapeutic. Like yoga for my psyche.) It was that I still had an emotional connection to that specific moment. Whoa, the power of the unconscious mind. And the power of music—for those of us who form deep relationships with it, that is. 

I’ll spare you another playing of the omnipresent and share instead a different song that stirs me up in a different way for a different reason every time I hear it.