It is 9:04 PM on Thursday, August 24th, 2017. It is a cool 60 degrees here in Pacifica under a waning crescent moon that overhangs Linda Mar. In about 30 minutes it will be in the perfect position for a stunning photograph with the city lights below and a sliver of a moon above.
Today I was thinking about the impact of songs when you’re young and in high school. For me, those would be the rock ballads of the ’80s and ’90s. It is hard to believe that was over twenty years ago. I thought about how music has very little impact on me now except when I’m on the treadmill and the music combined with the adrenaline creates a fantastic feeling. This is quite different from the deep, emotional feelings I got in high school when listening to Warrant, Van Halen, Queensryche, Live, and so on. I’d sit under my bed – I had a bunk bed where I slept on the top and had my SEGA cove below – and just sit in my rocking chair listening to music to help me get sleepy.
I’d think about the girls I had crushes on in high school, about wrestling, about the future, and about life. I don’t do this anymore and it takes a lot of concentration, plus a bit of music to even catch a flicker of those old feelings. I’ve had a guitar rift in my head most of the night but was unable to pinpoint the song. I scrolled through the top 100 rock ballads of the ’80s and ’90s with no luck. Then, just two minutes ago it occurred to me; the song is ‘Selling the Drama’ by Live. I thought that it was a slower song and turned it off after 10 seconds as it just doesn’t square well with the quiet night.
I’ve now switched to Queensryche’s ‘Silent Lucidity’ which does bring back memories but even at the lowest volume on my Mac seems out of place and too loud with the night. I press pause on the player and it seems to me that the gentle wind blowing through the trees against the dull roar of the ocean creates a better mood in which to write. It is a chilly night and I’m here in my clubhouse with a faint glow given off by the night light and a warm heat lamp just over 12 inches away to keep me warm. I look for my crescent moon and it appears to have now become hidden behind the fog over the ocean. That is too bad, it would have made a great picture and I the effort of going inside to get the camera is now wasted.
The most powerful song I remember when I was in high school rocking myself to sleep was ‘Comfortably Numb’ by Pink Floyd. When I listen to that song and concentrate I can be teleported back to my 18 year old self and catch flickers of the thoughts and emotions I had back then. This works especially well when I use the magic tonic of many glasses of wine. But I’ve had no wine tonight and so I remain my 40 year old self whose strong emotions have been wiped out by age.
In some ways I really miss those feelings. I miss the excitement of heading out on a Friday night with my friends. I miss the deep, strong feelings that so spontaneously arose out of nowhere, I miss the crushes I used to have and the excitement, fears, and routine of another day in my senior year of high school. My main feeling now is anxiety about work, about making another sale or not losing a big corporate customer. I do feel fear when I’m in karate class and have to go fight, but this isn’t a feeling I particularly enjoy and want to have. That feeling of fear too is subsiding slowly; after each fight it lessens as my confidence grows.
The moon reappears although faintly as though it is teasing me because I know when the timing is right it will have gone completely behind the fog not to reappear.
After I wrote that the paragraph above I grabbed my camera and was determined to at least try and get a shot. To my disbelief the moon appeared and gave me time to snap a few pictures.
The time is now 9:47 PM and so I’ll head to bed but this time I might try falling asleep to Queensryche and perhaps Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb.’ Since school has also started I might try to take a journey back to my high school bedroom, under my bunk bed and remember all of the thoughts and emotions that went through my head in high school.
