Music Moves You

The air conditioning has been torn up in my car for about a month, and the dealership didn't have the parts to fix it last week.

For the most part, it's only been a slight inconvenience because the temps have been semi-cold, and an air conditioner wasn't really needed...

not that an air conditioner is ever really a true necessity, except, you know, first world problems...

Caleb and I like to open the sun roof anyway, except on days when I tell him the air conditioner is broken, and then it is a true travesty that we can't have cold air and have to have the wind-blown look...

But sunroof days just seem to make me happier in general. There's just something about the sun beating through that little hole in the ceiling, the wind rushing through my hair, the radio cranked really, really loud...

So, on the way back from Richmond on Saturday, Wallace and I cranked open the sunroof..

and then closed it, because it looked like it was going to rain.

But we opened it again because it got a little warm.

And then it was REALLY windy so we closed it again...

But, in the meantime, we turned up the music REALLY loud.

Our stand-bys are Pearl Jam, AC/DC, and Bon Jovi, but I also gave what I felt was a really good rendition of Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, but he wasn't so impressed.

and I really wasn't impressed with his Hank Williams Jr. impersonation, either.

We did impress Caleb when I sent him a text showing that we were jamming down to "Does Your Mama Know You Dance Like That" and "Dessert".  I'm sure the people we drove by on the Mountain Parkway were only slightly concerned.

I thought, as I often do, how music defines whole time periods of our lives. As Kenny Loggin's Footloose came on the Shuffle, I thought back to a hot summer day where I stretched out a blanket next to the well box, overcome my fear of snakes crawling through the yard because I had just saw one headed toward Mom and Dad's porch steps the day before, filled my spray bottle with water, and rubbed BABY OIL on. The Footloose tape played in my Walkman and Teen magazines and Sweet Valley High books kept me company as I baked away in the hot sun.

It made me feel so good on that windy Saturday that I logged into the apple store that very minute, thinking about that, and purchased the rest of the Footloose album. Wallace was thrilled as I sang Hero, Hurts so Good, and Let's Hear it For the Boy at the top of my lungs.

Or maybe I was just imagining his enthusiasm.. but I sure enjoyed it.

Which made me think, again, how I can remember lyrics from songs 30 years ago but can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

I really am holding out for a hero...