My dark hair whips around, slapping my face. Wind bursts through the cab of the truck; all four of us are crammed onto one bench seat. I hit the rewind on the cassette player again. No one cares that we have listened to the same song for the past hour. No one cares that it’s a love song or that I’m the only one singing it. At least this is how I remember it. This was over 30 years ago.
Today, one of those friends sent me this memory. A message pops up on my phone that says, “This brought back some memories”. It is a video of someone singing a song I had forgotten I had pummeled into everyone around me during that time period. It transports me back to sitting in that truck with my best friends. I imagine when they go there, they feel just like I do, but there’s no way to know that.
So many times in life I don’t realize the impact moments are having on me or those around me until many years later. I never consider that my memories are also the memories of the people I formed them with. I tend to only think about my role in whatever the memory is and not think about how they experienced it.
Until today, 30 years later, I never considered if my friend liked the song, or that he associated it with me. I also can’t remember if any of them sang it with me or not. I think they did because we were fun like that, but my memory has a way of embellishing things I hope to be true.
To know that I was remembered and that people were paying attention to me back then, whether they meant to or not, made me feel good.
As I sit today, I am wondering how each of those people in the truck felt when I would take over the radio. If they didn’t like it, I never knew. If they protested, I most likely promised one more time and then just kept going. I like to imagine we were all on the same wavelength, enjoying whatever was happening. I would get lost in the wind whipping my hair into knots and singing at the top of my lungs. Maybe they were lost in that feeling too. I can’t remember, and it makes me sad that I can’t remember. I should have paid more attention.
I do remember their smiles. Each one. I also remember one time when Wayne took over the radio. He had a song he wanted to show me. I remember feeling annoyed that whichever song I had on repeat at the time was going to be interrupted, and I wonder if that’s why I remember this specific memory when others feel so hard to grasp. He hands me the tape. David Lee Murphy - Dust on the Bottle. I whine, internally or externally, I can’t be sure, but I know I did. “Just listen to it, Jaime, I want you to hear it.” He says, or something like that. It was important to him that I hear the song, that much I do remember. So I pop it in, look at Manda with the side eye, and brace myself to get through it so we can get back to my songs. Turns out I liked the song; by the second chorus I was singing along. There might be a little dust on the bottle, but don’t let it fool ya about what’s insiiiiide.
I return to this memory a lot when I think about Wayne and when we all used to ride around. I wonder why it was so important to him that I hear the song. Now, I’m thinking that maybe it didn’t have anything to do with the song or what it means, although I did spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand why he liked it so much. I think the simplest explanation might be that he was doing what I was doing. He was sharing something he liked with his friends. It didn’t have to be any deeper than that, but tell me that.
I connect meaning to pretty much everything and especially music. Almost every song I hear calls up a feeling or memory, so I assumed everyone else does the same. In recent years I’ve learned this is not the case. But maybe Wayne was. Maybe he was trying to communicate something more, or maybe he simply liked how the song sounded. I suppose I could have asked him, but I guess it was more fun to wonder about it.
Either way, I find this memory significant because it is one of the times someone challenged me to step outside of myself and pay attention to them. Reflecting on it now, 30 years later, I wonder how much richer life could be if I would take the time to look around and see the people I care about enjoying life too. Enjoying things from their perspective, on their terms, as well as from mine. So yeah, there might be a little dust on the bottle, but it’s one of those things that gets sweeter with time.
