But I digress…

In the midst of this cleaning frenzy, I came across some fun memorabilia – trinkets of the past, if you will – including (but not limited to):

• A photo taken of me & Jel the week I moved from Alaska – good times
• A coffee mug with the words “Safety First” from my trip to Thailand
• My last handwritten notebook journal and
• A bunch of “mix CDs” (which were post-mix tapes from high school, but pre-iPods & playlists).

Because music is a great thing to have on when you’re cleaning, or doing anything that keeps you from focusing on something steady like a TV screen, I popped in the CDs I’d found and let them play themselves silly.  I had no idea what was on them (I wasn’t much for labeling back in the late-90’s and early 2000’s when they were apparently made) and so I likewise had no idea what a ride I was in for.

I never cease to be amazed by the power that music has to evoke memories. Like smells, music can put me back in time and space to a particular place in an instant. As the CDs worked their way from beginning to end, I found myself completely transported – barely aware of the furniture, books, and boxes I was surrounded by.  I was at the mercy of the tunes.  The music had taken over.

Suddenly, I was…

• In the car with my sister (Jo) at Great Adventure in the safari, the giant head of a giraffe poking through the sunroof (Rusted Root – Send Me On My Way)
• Dancing in the snow with Jel at Beluga Point in the middle of the night (Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus)
• Working out at Dragon’s gym in Leamington Spa when I lived in the UK (Robbie Williams – Let Love Be Your Energy)
• Sailing through the Greek Isles in July 2001 (U2 – Beautiful Day)
• Camping with my sister outside of Denali National Park (Counting Crows – Round Here)
• Driving through Anchorage in the snow my first winter there (REM – Leave)
• In the beach bar on Relax Bay in Thailand (Dido – Here With Me)
• Hanging with my friends at the Willow Grove Mall in Junior High (Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar On Me)
• Running around the reservoir with Jennifer in Central Park (U2 – Veritgo)
• Rockin’ out with Kristy in the car while driving around really cool places like Quakertown, Pennsburg, and East Greenville, PA (EMF – Unbelievable)
• Watching TV n the UK with Kristin when she came to visit (Element 4 – Big Brother Theme)
• Doin’ the dance with Jel in the car or at The Last Frontier…and most recently at her house in Edmonds (Will Smith – Men In Black)
• Seeing U2 in concert with Es in the post-9/11 “Elevation” tour (U2 – Elevation)
• On the Youth Group retreat up at Kutztown University, summer of 1989 (Cheap Trick – The Flame)
• Sailing in Thailand (Coldplay – Clocks)
• Seeing REM live from the front “row” in Seattle during the Bumbershoot Music Festival with Jel in 1999 (REM – Lotus)
• Hanging out in Memphis with Es (Live – Selling the Drama)
• On the Amtrak ride from Philly to Seattle when I moved up to Alaska in 1996 (REM – How The West Was Won & Where It Got Us)

I could go on and on and on.

In looking at that list, I can’t help but wonder where on earth the time goes.  Seriously – it just flies.  But that aside, I know that no matter what, I need to hang onto these CDs (or at least the playlists) so that when I’m old and gray and sitting in a retirement home somewhere, all I’ll need to do to relive the best moments of my life will be to play through one of these bad boys.  Pop in a CD (or put on a playlist) and my mind will be off and running.

Of course I’ve got a lot of years left and since I’m still collecting memories this way, I figure I’m going to have some crazy long-ass playlists by then…

Hopefully the technology will be able to keep up.

In case you’re interested, here is an interesting article I found which discusses music’s other superhero-like capabilities: http://www.livescience.com/health/081015-music-power.html

Apparently in addition to provoking memories, it can ease pain, influence mood, boost immunity, overcome fatigue, increase intelligence, reduce stress, anxiety, and depression…to name a few.  I don’t know if I can think of anything non-drug or alcohol-related that can claim all of that.

So what’s everyone waiting for?  Pump up the jam!

October 2005 was my final month in NYC before I moved back out to PA and started working at my current job.  As something of a “send-off” from NYC, I had tickets to four separate U2 Vertigo concerts.  Two of them I went to with others, two were solo.  One of the solo tickets I had was for a floor seat on 10/11.  It was an amazing show.  I got there early, stood in line, didn’t win the “lottery” for the inner circle crowd, but I was cool with that because I still managed to get a space at the outer edge of the circle right in the center.  I was within spitting distance of Bono (not that I would have dared spit on him, but the point is that I could have).  It was awesome.

The Arcade Fire song “Wake-Up” signaled the beginning of the concert. “City of Blinding Lights” began to play and Bono appeared on the stage right in front of me. With my camera poised, I was ready. Of course it was at this moment that the memory card decided to crap out completely.  I started getting error messages.  Things would blink that normally didn’t blink.  I think my camera might even have given me the finger.  It didn’t matter how sweetly I spoke to it, how much I begged or how many promises I made, it just stubbornly refused to work.  I ended up eventually sending the stupid thing back to SanDisk who sent me a replacement, but that didn’t do me much good while Bono and The Edge were rockin’ out just a few feet away and me unable to capture it with anything but my memory!  The good news is that I still had one more concert to attend with good seats so I was able to get some fabulous shots then (see the gallery at the end of this post), however I still didn’t have anything to take away from this crowning jewel moment in my concert-going history.

I was online tonight and for some reason suddenly thought, “Hey – the Internet is a pretty big place…I wonder if someone else who was at the concert that night happened to post photos of it..?” So I started to search.  Lo and behold, I found photos taken from someone who was part of the inner circle which were great, but then I also stumbled across a bunch of YouTube videos taken that night and to my great surprise, you can see me in some of them! Well, you kinda have to know what you’re looking for, but still.

If you feel so inclined, you can watch the whole video (the camera angle catches me at various times throughout) but I also took a screenshot and highlighted myself in the lower right corner (just look for the blue circle).

Pretty cool, huh? I’m just loving the Internet right now.

The photos below are from the last of the four concerts on 10/14/2005: