When I was pregnant with my second boy, my husband got Dengue Fever and had to be admitted to hospital for days. His platelet count was very low and it was a really scary ordeal. I had my 2yr old son at home so I couldn't stay at the hospital, and with my extreme nausea and how hectic things got, I was grateful for "Playhouse Disney" to keep my little one occupied for small stretches. I'd park him there to watch Roly Poly Olie while I scrambled to get us out of the house so I could go check on his daddy at the hospital. To this DAY, seven years later, I can't hear the sound of that show, because it brings back the nausea and stress I felt back then.
Other sounds bring back different memories. Certain songs bring back vivid snapshots of a view from a balcony overlooking trees and grass blowing in the breeze, with some kind of sugar industry close by. Another song, an image of a dimly lit room where the sunlight outside barely came through the open doorway, lovely steps to someone else's apartment beckoning me to come and play outside in the sun and watch the palm trees dance.
Some songs are recurring. They hold possibilities of different portals - different moments in time connected by the same song. This is one of them.
This song takes me back to my childhood. My mother loved Cat Stevens
. I loved him too. There is something so heartfelt in his music. Human emotion captured precisely and transposed into melody and chords. This part of my childhood is full of emotion. And it was followed by life-changing moves and much turmoil for years to come. I remember that one of the few lines I could understand and sing along with was "Don't be a bad girl" and I would sing it with conviction and promise as if to reassure my mother that I would indeed be a good girl.She would be lost in thought. I imagine she was contemplating the Wild World out there, and thinking that she never imagined how Wild the World we ended up in would have been.
We would leave that Wild World behind and many years later, in my tumultuous teenage years, this song would make a comeback. The memories of this time are of myself debating my own choices and reminding myself that the World was not always a welcoming place. Logically, I knew about the wolves out there. But I knew I had no choice but to take that Wild World on the only way I could. With blind faith, a little luck, and friends by my side. Despite my mother's realized fears magnified now in the prospect of her girl child about the fly the nest. And even though it brought much distress to our relationship, I've never regretted that decision. It was the only one I could make.
But perhaps the most powerful memory that song is tied to is the period in time when I walked away from my first serious relationship. Despite the "he done me wrong" the decision was mine to stay or to leave. To choose to try to heal and mend certainly, but under what terms... I chose my terms. I wanted out, because I knew I deserved more. And after years of trying to show that love was enough, I stood up and took the opposite position... That sometimes it just wasn't....
Because our relationship changed on that day that I demanded and took my respect, and because we have remained friends to this day, I know that he felt the words of this song. And I sang it to myself over and over in my head. With conviction. Understanding the words in a way I never could have at 16. And I sang it for myself, to myself, creating a bittersweet memory I hope I never forget.
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