{"id":108,"date":"2021-04-22T17:36:41","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T21:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/?p=108"},"modified":"2021-05-06T14:36:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T18:36:34","slug":"nostalgia-sounds-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/2021\/04\/22\/nostalgia-sounds-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Nostalgia Sounds Good"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

Credit: Cate Reynolds<\/p><\/div>\n

Late spring brought with it a wave of melancholy. Outside, there was a thunderstorm starting. I opened my window, hoping that the cool air from the storm would relieve some of the late-May heat that was stagnant in my un-airconditioned room. I took a seat on the floor, resting my back against the end of my bed frame, and let out an audible sigh. The curtain on my window slowly billowed while I aimlessly picked pieces of lint from my carpet and placed them in a small pile beside me. I was having a bad day. It was one of those days where the weight of the world felt heavier, the isolation felt lonelier, the sadness felt more palpable, and I, unable to change or escape the present reality, felt claustrophobic within my own mind. I lounged back on my carpet, put on my headphones, and hit shuffle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Track #1: At Last – Etta James<\/b><\/p>\n

My parents had an Etta James greatest hits CD that they played frequently from the large stereo that sat under the window in the back of my childhood living room. The stereo had a five disk changer and two external speakers. I can remember the slight click the machine would make when my dad hit the power switch and the subtle static sound that would come from the speakers before a song began playing. Sometimes, I\u2019d place my hand on the front of one of the speakers just to feel the vibrations of the music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was really young, I loved to dance and sing along to whatever was playing from the stereo. I\u2019d twirl around on the carpet in my bare feet, belting my version of the lyrics. Or, sometimes, I\u2019d stand on my dad\u2019s feet, hugging his legs as we glided across the living room, the side of my cheek pressed against the rough denim of his pant leg. When I grew tired, I\u2019d sit down on the living room rug and trace the outline of the rug\u2019s pattern with my fingers while I listened to the music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My little sister would usually join me for the dance sessions. One time she twirled so much she made herself dizzy and fell to the floor, and the side of her face hit the corner of the coffee table on the way down, leaving a small gash near her temple, which, after a trip to the ER, eventually healed and scarred.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Record

Credit: Cate Reynolds<\/p><\/div>\n

Track #2: Wasteland, Baby! – Hozier<\/b><\/p>\n

My sister is a great singer, a trait she inherited from our dad, but she\u2019s never had a desire to sing publicly. We used to have an iHome in our bathroom, and she\u2019d plug in her iPod Nano whenever she took a shower, blasting and singing along to her latest playlist. Even now as a 23-year-old, most of her activities are accompanied by music. Ariana Grande and Whitney Houston play when she cooks. In the fall, she listens to <\/span>Fleetwood Mac <\/span><\/i>and Ray LaMontagne. In the spring, it\u2019s Lake Street Dive<\/em> and Maggie Rogers. She listens to Bruce Springsteen<\/span> or <\/span>The Chicks <\/span><\/i>when she\u2019s feeling nostalgic, Van Morrison and <\/span>The Lumineers<\/span><\/i> when she\u2019s sad, and Beyonce and Dua Lipa when she\u2019s feeling like a bad bitch.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She\u2019s always had a knack for finding music. In 2014, she discovered music by a young Irish singer named Hozier. Before the world tours and stadium concerts, she was listening to his debut album, remaining a loyal fan into her adulthood. During her senior year of college, my parents gave her two tickets to his upcoming concert for Christmas and she asked me to go with her. The concert was in March of 2019 at an old theater in Baltimore. We stood the entire time, dancing, singing, and swaying along to every song. My sister, never taking her eyes off the stage, would occasionally pause and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, exposing the small scar still visible next to her eye.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This song is about watching the world end with someone you love, and that someone is completely unaware of what\u2019s happening around them<\/span><\/i>, Hozier said before playing <\/span>Wasteland, Baby! <\/span><\/i>One year before our own little apocalypse, we were both happily and blissfully unaware of what was up ahead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Track #3: I Think Ur A Contra – Vampire Weekend<\/b><\/p>\n

My mom always says \u201cyou don\u2019t have to like your siblings, you just have to love them.\u201d This phrase is most commonly directed towards me or my second oldest brother about the other. Our similar personalities and closeness in age comes with frequent conflict, which became worse in our teen years when our friend groups began to overlap. One time in high school, my brother walked into a party to find I was already there talking to one of his friends and sipping a beer. \u201cYou have to leave now or I\u2019m going to tell mom you were at a party drinking underage,\u201d he said to me while also at a party drinking underage. \u201cYou\u2019re here too,\u201d I snapped back. A few months later, we went to a Vampire Weekend concert together. It was the first concert I ever attended without an adult chaperone. We spent the whole night enjoying the concert together, never once bickering. It\u2019s always been that way for us and our relationship–the highs are some of my best memories and the lows are just really low.<\/span><\/p>\n

He and I went to the same college where we both studied English. Sometimes, we\u2019d meet for happy hour after class and talk about our favorite professors, or spend too much time analyzing excerpts of <\/span>Finnegans Wake<\/span><\/i>. Since the lockdown began, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time thinking back on those moments and wondering when I stopped understanding him, or when he stopped understanding me, and whether we\u2019d ever understand each other again. And I realized in that moment that my mom was right–I didn\u2019t really like my big brother right now, but I\u2019ll always love him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Track #5: Wide Open Spaces – The Dixie Chicks<\/b><\/p>\n

My mom hums all the time. Usually, you can locate her whereabouts in the house by following her humming. Sometimes it\u2019s a specific song, other times it\u2019s an original tune. The kitchen in my childhood home had a small, white cd player. It was mounted underneath one of the cabinets, typically with a stack of CDs below it. The CD player seemed to always be on, playing the choice music of whoever was in the kitchen at the time. For my mom, it was usually Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Buffett, or the Dixie Chicks (now known as The Chicks).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A

Credit: Cate Reynolds<\/p><\/div>\n

I can remember walking to our backdoor from the swingset at the far end of the yard and the music from the kitchen would become louder and louder the closer I got. By the time I reached the back porch, I\u2019d be able to clearly hear my mom singing or humming along to whatever was playing. Hearing the creak of the screen door as I opened it, my mom would look up from whatever project she was working on, smile, and greet me. I\u2019d plop down on a kitchen chair and ask if she could fix my hair, which was messy from hours running around outside in the heat and humidity. She\u2019d say yes, and I\u2019d sit and wait while she finished up whatever she was in the middle of. Depending on the project, my wait would vary. Sometimes she\u2019d just be doing the dishes or cooking, other times she would be ripping up flooring, re-painting the trim, installing cabinetry, or potting plants. Eventually, she\u2019d grab a comb and detangler spray, still humming behind me as she worked through the knots in my hair. When she was done, I\u2019d turn around and she\u2019d smile as she tucked any stray pieces behind my ears, then send me off with a kiss on the forehead. I\u2019d thank her and run out the door, hearing her remind me not to slam the door just as the screen door would slam shut behind me. \u201cSorry!\u201d I\u2019d shout, running barefoot through the grass away from the house. The music from the kitchen would become more faint with every step until, eventually, I couldn’t hear it at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Track #6: Fearless – Taylor Swift<\/b><\/p>\n

The moment he got his driver\u2019s license, my eldest brother became the family chauffeur. Especially on the weekends, he was tasked with shuttling his siblings around in our Honda Odyssey. The upside for him was that he was able to drive around and listen to music. The downside for us was that my brother has always had a tendency to fixate on one artist, band, or album at a time. If he were in a Janis Joplin phase, Janis Joplin would be the only music he played for weeks, sometimes months, until he decided to move onto something new. His music taste is extremely eclectic, so you never knew what exactly you\u2019d be getting yourself into when you slid open the side door of the minivan. One month it would be Lady Gaga, the next it would be Led Zeppelin, followed by The Beastie Boys, then the B-52\u2019s, then Tom Waits, Amy Winehouse, The White Stripes, David Bowie, Eminem, Bob Marley–the list goes on. He had more knowledge of music than anyone I\u2019ve ever known. Sometimes, he\u2019d turn down the volume knob on the radio before saying \u201cDid you know\u2026\u201d and presenting some fun fact or anecdote about the artist or song we were listening to.<\/span><\/p>\n

One day, my brother picked me up from school and I opened the passenger side door to discover he had moved onto a new artist. I paused a moment before climbing into the car, not believing what I was hearing. There was my 19-year-old brother, six feet tall with broad shoulders that somehow made him look even taller, wearing a Van Halen t-shirt, a small gold hoop earring, and dark, wayfarer sunglasses, while blasting Taylor Swift from my mom\u2019s minivan. I needed to make sure my ears weren\u2019t deceiving me. \u201cAre you listening to Fearless?\u201d I asked. \u201cYeah!\u201d he replied. \u201cGreat album.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A week before the pandemic lockdown began, I picked my brother up from his rowhouse in Baltimore. We were going to a local brewery. It was his first outing in almost two months. My brother is a steel worker and, in late January, a 2000 pound steel beam fell off a forklift and crushed his legs. He had recently undergone his third surgery and was cleared for a field trip. I helped him into the back seat of my car, loaded his wheelchair and walker into my trunk and, after double checking that had taken his medication, hit play on my Spotify and pulled away from the house. \u201cFool in the Rain\u201d was the first song to come on. \u201cAre you listening to Led Zeppelin?\u201d he asked. \u201cYeah!\u201d I said. \u201cGreat song.\u201d \u201cDo you know what it\u2019s about?\u201d I asked. He did, of course.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Track #7: Waitin\u2019 On A Sunny Day – Bruce Springsteen<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cSun shower\u201d is the term my family has always used to describe those types of rain storms that occur when the sun is still shining bright. In the summer of 2002, Bruce released <\/span>The Rising<\/span><\/i>. Track #3, \u201cWaitin\u2019 On A Sunny Day,” was my favorite at the time, primarily because the opening line reminded me of a sun shower: <\/span>It\u2019s rainin\u2019 but there ain\u2019t a cloud in the sky<\/span><\/i>. But the line that followed–<\/span>must\u2019ve been a tear from your eye–<\/span><\/i> always confused me. My 7-year-old mind couldn\u2019t yet grasp the metaphorical language. I was entranced by the sun shower imagery and the upbeat melody.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cate's

Credit: Cate Reynolds<\/p><\/div>\n

My dad and I were driving to the neighborhood pool one afternoon that same summer. My dad, in the driver\u2019s seat, placed <\/span>The Rising <\/span><\/i>CD into his walkman, which was connected to his car\u2019s radio through a cassette adapter. I requested track #3 from the backseat. With my hand out the window, I quietly sang along to the lyrics while feeling the warm breeze gently hit my palm as my dad drove. I hadn\u2019t realized he\u2019d turned down the music until we reached a stop sign. He looked at me in the backseat through the rearview mirror and, with a slight sense of pride, asked \u201cDo you know all the words?\u201d I think so, I said. He started the song over and listened to me sing the rest of the ride, frequently glancing away from the road and smiling at me through the mirror. When I stumbled or struggled to recall the correct lyrics, he\u2019d chime in and sing-along until I was back on track.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m waitin’, waitin’ on a sunny day<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Gonna chase the clouds away<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Waitin’ on a sunny day<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I was pulled back to reality when, through my headphones, I heard a rustling sound. The breeze coming through my window whisked a pile of papers off my desk, and they began dancing around my room, eventually landing beside me on the rug. Outside, the thunder had grown closer. I could hear the rain slapping loudly against the house. A small puddle had accumulated on my windowsill. I stood up and pulled the window closed, and the noise of the storm became distant, leaving me to sit comfortably in the quiet of my mind. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A writer goes on a music induced\u2014and pandemic influenced\u2014rainy day nostalgia-trip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}