Put on a piece of music you love. Write a scene or story called to mind by this piece.
If I told you how long it took me to decide which song to put on, you would be shocked - a day and a half! Not only did this decision take a while because I am an indecisive person, but because music is a huge part of my everyday life. I listen to music while walking to class, while working out, while showering, while studying (sometimes), and if I'm in the mood, before bed. Although I'm constantly listening to music, I do not have a favorite genre, artist, or album. If asked about my favorite kind of music, I usually respond with "the kind that takes me somewhere."
Music has the ability to take me places when life gets to be too much. I listen to Latin pop music, or Reggaeton, when I want to be transported to the beach. I listen to the Motown sounds when I want to be hanging out in the backyard of my childhood home with my family on a breezy summer day. I listen to country music when I want to be taken back to the muddy fields of Country Thunder (a country music festival in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin). If you can name a song or type of music, I can probably name the memory of a place or time that my mind is instantly delivered to.
After a day of thinking about different songs that make me think of a scene or story from my life, I decided on No Sugar Tonight by The Guess Who. Not only does this song make me think of my family, specifically my father, but it also brings me back to 2005 when we took a trip to Alaska. I was only five years old when we took the trip so that my father, my Uncle Neal, and my Aunt Deborah could run one of many marathons that they've completed all together. These marathons were a large part of my childhood because dad was frequently training and Aunt Deborah was coming into town for the Chicago Marathon on a yearly basis. I think of my dad when I hear this song because he really enjoys it and had put it on when I first heard it. Thinking about this memory from Alaska and my father together, I feel an odd sense of pride in the fact that he was running a marathon - something not everyone can say they've accomplished.
Hearing No Sugar Tonight plucks me from my cozy bedroom in Iowa City and drops me (fifteen years younger) into a large train car in Anchorage. It's bright from the blurred white surroundings that whip past us and I feel so small compared to the large booth seat I'm sitting in. The train is wide enough to fit two large tables with a walkway in the middle, and tall enough that my six foot father could raise his arms and just barely touch the ceiling. I'm sitting next to my (then) seven year old brother and we are using a headphone splitter to watch something on my dad's old laptop.
Life looks so simple on this train ride. Yes, it was a vacation, but I was also in kindergarten at the time,. For this reason, No Sugar Tonight puts me in a good mood, even while the words to the song are not necessarily positive ones. On top of this, because the song is tied to family, it makes me happy to hear that first strum of the guitar and the peaceful beginning melody.
