Taking an old familiar road

I just bought Seals and Crofts greatest hits CD, and have been taking a nostalgic trip back in time. And found that I am also firmly entrenched in this one. As you may or may not remember, Seals and Crofts was circa 1975 or some such, I'm sure some of their stuff dates way before that, but it was one of the first cassette tapes I bought for myself at 16 years old. I remember the boss at my very first job (Poor Ed's Deli, remember it Magz?) he let me play it in the shop. It went on to live in the glove compartment of my first car, an Opel Manta, I remember playing it on my way to school, and I remember playing it on my way to extra-curricular school events, one such was a biology club camp-out at Joshua Tree National Monument. Listening to these old words and tunes that I knew so well back then takes me back so thoroughly, I can see faces, I can recall conversations, I can feel the same excitement, anxiety, and anticipations that used to fill so much of my thoughts. O! The rawness of youth, when everything seemed fresh and new because it WAS! When we went places and met people and tried things, we were doing it for the first time! It WAS an adventure, everything we did!

So I'm sitting in a one of those white plastic lawn chairs in front of my house last nite, watching the last of the evening light turn into a sunset and then dusk. I've just finished a barbeque'd dinner, I have the new CD playing inside, the music and a stream of yellow light coming through an open window behind me. It's a quintessential Southern Cal nite, warm and still. And on comes "Summer Breeze". As I listen and smile at the memories, I begin to hear some of the words and I'm taken aback. I feel like I'm living within the song. What I've always pictured when hear that song is what I'm feeling and seeing now. "See the curtains hanging in the window, in the evening on a Friday nite. Little light is shining thru the window, lets me know everything's alright." "see the paper laying on the sidewalk, a little music from the house next door"…Summer Breeze… blowin' thru the jasmine in my mind….I feel like I have truly come home. I have achieved something that I created in my mind a long long time ago. It one more time validates a tenet that I've always held: that you formulate your own path and future through mental visualizations, be it conscious or unconscious.

So let me leave you with this thought: the next song after Summer Breeze is: We May Never Pass this Way Again. While one part of me just wants to listen to it over and over again for the harmonies (I'm a sucker for multi-voiced harmonies! Don't ever get me started on the Eagles' Seven Bridges Road! Or Loggins and Messina!) I am stricken with the thought that we WILL never pass this way again. What we have is fleeting and dynamic, so we'd best enjoy every moment while we can, while it's happening, live in the now. Believe it or not, my blog friends, I thought of you! I thought of this neat time for all of us to have found each other, found solace in our similarities and friendships, found interest and challenge in our differing experiences. We are in our time right now. And it will never be like this again. We are kids again, on a biology club expedition, comforted with our togetherness but uncertain in the future. There is excitement, anxiety and anticipation! Anything could happen or nothing could, I hope whatever you have in mind does! I know it does for me!