Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

I’m listening to my Lyle Lovett station on Pandora, loud, surprised that each song is something that fits exactly the mood I’m in, although that’s the magic of Pandora – the genetic coding of music to create caches of similar tonality, rhythm, mood, even vocal range. It would be like going to Baskin Robbins and having them preselect a dozen or so flavors for you to taste that you’d be guaranteed to love because you love pistachio, which is genetically similar to sea salt caramel, rocky road, caramel turtle, and so on, but being spared the assault of a tangy citrus sorbet or worse, the devastation of black licorice.

Each song is a friend asking for the next dance, the next warm memory, and together we sing and spin around the living room floor. Lyle reminding me of the possibility that he’d play at my wedding (someone who knew someone who knew someone knew Lyle . . . ); he didn’t, of course, play at my wedding, but just the idea that I’d be cool enough to want him to sing at my wedding – this was before Lyle made it big, before Julia Roberts caught and released him, before he was a common taste, when he was a songwriter capturing the irony of human failure and longing and making it sound good. The Band is playing now, a live version of “The Weight”, and what can I say about this old friendship circle, to which I can still harmonize perfectly when I join in, seamlessly ascending all four notes of the prolonged “and” on, “Take a load off Anny, and and you put the load right on me.” They’re such good old friends that they have never minded that, until today, when I had to look up the lyrics to write about them without error, I’ve been singing, “take the load off Manny.” Alison Krauss, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones, Keb’ Mo’, John Prine, Emmylou Harris – they can all step inside this house.

The music is loud, the kind of loud that if the kids were playing the Glee station, I’d make them turn it down; if my husband was grooving to the Chicago Blues station, I’d make him turn it down. But I’m the only grown up here, and the music is making me happy. There are three well-snacked 10-year-olds upstairs in the playroom, building a mining center out of Legos. We’re all taking full advantage of our snow-less, sunny and warm snow day. Real life has been cancelled, freeing up two generations to slip into their favorite pastimes. Legos and dancing, dancing and Legos. And writing. And singing.

“Wild, wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” the Rolling Stones are singing, and I’m with them. Nothing could drag me away from an afternoon escape like this.