The Persistence of Memory and Music

If you could only take one album off-planet with you, what would it be?

Memory is a weird thing. I happen to have, for better or worse, very detailed and vivid recall but that certainly doesn’t mean I remember everything. I’ve lived some years now, and some memories have won supremacy, while others sink below consciousness like a pebble tossed into a pond.

I think this is the case for most of us.

It doesn’t mean the memory isn’t there. It just means many exist below the surface and we don’t see them on the regular.

Until.

I jolted awake this morning as if shaken by a lover or natural disaster and drew a quick breath, pulled suddenly out of slumber recalling something I hadn’t thought of in so long that for a moment I wondered if I was still asleep.

I tend to give nicknames to people I like a lot or love and if you are in that number you’ve likely heard me refer to you super affectionally by whatever moniker I bestowed on you.

I don’t know why I do this. It’s a verbal kiss, I suppose (except for that one couple I call “Pussy & Personality Disorder”…but I suppose that’s a smooch-invite as well, only to kiss my ass.)

I also love it when people give me a nickname. I have a friend who calls me “Bruce” and it always, but always, makes me laugh. My late husband John would call me “Mariposa” and later “Little Cosmic Girl” after the Brett Dennen song and both will ever make me smile.

My eyes flew open this morning and my first thought was about the boyfriend I used to often refer to as the Jack of Hearts. I had other nicknames for him as well, but I hadn’t thought of that one in so long that if you had asked me yesterday I would have had to ponder to pull that particular pebble to the surface. I probably hadn’t thought about it in 40 years.

Anyway, that well-deserved nickname (is there any other kind?) sprung from the Bob Dylan song “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.” It’s a long tale and a hazy, humid, love story but I shan’t go into that part just now.

That trip down memory lane took me to another destination.