drive time

I love to read. I end each day snuggled under my shabby chic bedding, with my head propped on a stack of soft marshmallowy pillows, reading glasses perched on the end of my plastered-in-night-cream nose, tea, warm milk or water on the bedside table and a good book in my hungry hands. I can’t think of a better way to end the day.

But I also enjoy listening to books.

This simple pleasure dates back to the last year I lived in Toronto, the one and only year that I drove in that fabulous and fatiguing city. Back then I particularly enjoyed listening to Wayne Dyer during my drive time to and from work. His soothing and reassuring voice comforted me during many difficult days, and gave me the courage I needed to move 4,000 miles across the country with two kids and 3 cats, and with absolutely no prospect for work. Nada. There was only this inexplicable and powerful yearning to go west, the kind that I imagine the early pioneers must have possessed. And there was also the unwavering belief that a better life waited for us on the other side of the mountains, next to the big blue sea.

Plus, I just had faith. Faith that if I did this very big and scary thing, it would all turn out okay. That God and the Universe and my Fairy Godmother would provide. We 3 Kings would be taken care of. And we were.

Some of my favorite audio books have been Christmas gifts from my son. There have been a few where I’ve thought, “this can’t possibly be something I’d enjoy. What was he thinking?” But those were often the very ones that I’ve enjoyed the most. Like Beyond the White House by Jimmy Carter or The Elephant to Hollywood by Michael Caine or the one he gave me this year Brief Encounters by Dick Cavett. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loved Billy Crystal’s Still Foolin’ Em. I laughed and cried in equal doses listening to this one and was reminded once again why I’m such a huge fan of this man.

All really wonderful books that I probably never would have even given a second glance had he not been given them to me.

I just finished listening to Bossypants by Tina Fey. I read the book when it first came out in paperback and it was an enormously entertaining read. But listening to Tina read her own words, was nothing short of brilliant. I realized that the voice inside my head reading Bossypants was all wrong. It was me doing Tina. So to hear the real McCoy was heavenly and a much richer experience.

The thing I like the most about listening to audio books is the intimacy of being alone in my truck while someone’s reading to me. There’s just something precious, no matter how old you are, about having someone read to you. For that brief encounter, I am able to suspend all disbelief, and imagine that I’m sitting with Barack Obama or Steve Martin or Bill Bryson or The Beatles while they tell me – just me – a very personal story about their life. It’s beautiful and lovely. I highly recommend it. Not as a replacement for reading books. I would never in a million years suggest such bibliophilic blasphemy. But in addition to reading, and especially if you’re crunched for time.

You can listen and learn something new. Listen and laugh out loud. Listen and cry your eyes out. Listen and ponder the wonders of the universe.

Or you can just listen. And enjoy.

Lately every time I hear two particular songs on the truck radio, one particular person comes to mind. My first big love. You know what I’m talking about. The one you’ll never forget. Ever. No matter how hard you try. No matter how many times you tell yourself you’re a fool to feel this way. A foolish young girl then. An equally foolish old broad now.

I’ve also learned recently that time has no affect on this kind of love.

Chances are, I might never have realized just how big a deal this guy was to me had I not bought a truck. And had that truck not come loaded with six-months worth of Sirius Radio. And in case you’re wondering, six months is just long enough to become addicted to the billions of stations Sirius carries. You name it; they’ve got a station for that. Let’s just say I’ve listened to a lot of good music over the past five years.

Last summer I discovered a station called The Bridge. This station features mellow classic rock and ‘70s folk rock. There’s a lot of acoustic stuff from guys like Jackson Browne and James Taylor. I had no idea I liked their music so much until I started tuning into The Bridge.

In addition to discovering a ton of fabulous old-new music, I’ve also taken a few trips back to another era in my life, all the while driving in this one. It was bound to happen. I’d hear a song or two that reminded me of him. Ones that would fill my spirit with doleful lamentations and serve as poignant reminders that even the passage of time and tornadoes, the heart simply remembers what the head discards with yesterdays old love letters.

The first song, the happier memory-maker of the two, is Paul McCartney’s Maybe I’m Amazed. I say this one is happier only because this song was from the beginning of our affair with love. Picture this. A darkened room lit only by a single candle stuck into the top of a Chianti bottle, the kind with the fiasco basket, with rivers of wax dripping down onto the table. This was a classic ‘70s mood-setter. Now tune your ears to this. He puts Maybe I’m Amazed on his record player and says, “This song is how I feel about you. I think of you every time I hear it.” Nice. I was intoxicated. Not only by his earnest declaration of love, that was beyond anything I could have ever imagined, but by the Chianti. I was seriously drunk. Which explains why I thought something like this, “I must be amazing if a guy as cute and popular and sexy as him, feels this way about me. And he played the piano just like Paul McCartney. How did I get so lucky?”

So Maybe I’m Amazed is the happy ‘in the beginning, everything is new and wonderful, once upon a time fairytale’ song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWrGSa-Asdk

And then there’s Carole King’s It’s Too Late. Picture this. It’s the middle of summer. It’s stinking hot and humid in Northwestern Ontario. I’m pregnant with my first big love’s child. And we’ve split the sheets. As in gone our separate ways. Or more accurately, he’s gone touring and my heart has gone in about a million separate ways. Now tune your ears to this. The phone rings. I pick it up. Hear my first big love’s voice on the other end. My heart momentarily lifts to glorious angelic heights. “He wants me back,” I hopefully (and foolishly) think. Then he says this, “I thought of you today. That Carole King song, It’s Too Late came on the radio this afternoon.” I don’t remember a word he said after that. I just remember putting down the phone and lying in the middle of my bedroom floor on my back, staring up at the ceiling. And bawling my fucking brains out. My life was over. Of course, it wasn’t. It just felt that way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5TxpJVKKQ8

Eventually I picked myself up off the floor and started the life that would lead to the life I have today. One filled with music. And love. And love of music.

There you have it. Drive time. Two beautiful piano songs accompanied by two bittersweet memories.

My Thing About God

Diaries of The Breadman's Daughter.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Listening to Books.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: The Power of Music.