Bored? Overwhelmed? Go Get Lost in an Old Song

This was not the blog I sat down to write. I guess that will come out next week 🙂 Alas, the Spotify playlist I have running in my headphones demanded that I do this instead:

I could be pushing a grocery cart through Kroger or waiting in line for a prescription at CVS and a song comes on the radio. A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton or Kiss the Rain by Billie Myers or I’ll Be Missing You by Diddy, 112, and Faith Evans or Truly, Madly, Deeply by Savage Garden. Backstreet Boys. Barenaked Ladies. Blink 182.

And I’m completely swept away, physically present in my current adult surroundings, but totally in another place and time emotionally.

Anyone else experience this?

Kiss the Rain is especially electric in this way for me. In present life, I’m waiting to pick up a prescription for my asthmatic two-year-old. In my mind, it’s deep autumn. 1997 or so. It’s obviously raining in Portland, Oregon. And I’m swaying awkwardly in a circle of my other middle school friends in a half-darkened gymnasium on SE 39th Avenue. It’s cozy and familiar, but also fresh and new. Thumping music, full of possibility.

A Thousand Miles is equally evocative. Except for that one, I’m 16 and riding through NE Portland with my friend Andrea to soccer practice. She’s driving. We left the parents at home. We’re in a part of the city that’s new to us. The sun is shining, the windows are down, and autumn is in the air. We are riding high on freedom, independence, and the striking newness of adolescence.

It’s the power of story set to music. There’s the story in the lyrics. The story in the melody. And the story that my mind associates with both.

When I first moved to Detroit, I discovered a radio station from Canada that was particularly fond of playing My Heart Will Go On, by Celine Dion, the tune that for anyone alive in the late 90s will always conjure up Rose and Jack. And every time that song came on, I was back in my Catholic school cafeteria, playing Gossip with my friends around our circular tables. Jenna is munching on chips and drinking Jolt. I’m laughing so hard I nearly choke.

For me, music that takes me away so thoroughly is such a comfort when I’m in a completely new situation. I’ve never lived anywhere long-term besides Portland. And probably in times of stress and responsibility and the often daily blandness of raising babies in the suburbs, my mind is ripe for escape.

I haven’t always been this frumpy. And therefore, one day I will probably emerge from this season. It’s good for me to go back there sometimes. It enhances my appreciation for the present when I remember that life is good in every season.

So for those of you stuck in adulting and feeling bored and stuck and perhaps far from home, put on that old middle and high school or college playlist while you clean the bathrooms or wait in the carpool line. I think losing ourselves in nostalgic music for a few minutes a day can be a pretty healthy option for wellness and mental perspective.

So, what’s on your playlist and where does it take you?