Music and Memory

I've been thinking about music a lot lately.  Of course, I think about music all the time.  I sing.  The Rutter Requiem and the Faure Requiem are currently taking up a lot of space in my brain. I don't have any real memories associated them yet.  I have heard quite a few older songs lately that have brought back other places and times.
For instance, just today I heard Elton John's I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues.  That took me straight back to the days just before my husband and I were married.  It became something of a theme song for us because he was in the Air Force, and was often away.  Time on my hands always weighed heavily because I could have been with him if he was home.  This was true of the first several years of our marriage.
Some songs remind me of fictional characters.  I don't know why, but Billy Joel songs remind me of the Joe Maxwell character from the TV series Beauty and the Beast.  (Of course, Bach and Grieg remind me of Vincent and Catherine, but that's to be expected, if you know anything about the series.)
The Four Tops can bring back my early childhood better than nursery rhyme songs can.  I listened to the radio every night before I fell asleep, and my sister always put the radio on KHJ, and they played lots of Motown.  Sugar Pie, Honeybunch was a favorite.  Older Beatles songs bring the same sort of memories.
Don McLean takes me back to my early teens, and my introspective days.  (Vincent, Everybody Loves Me, And I Love You So...)  High School is brought back by Elton John's Caribou album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, and Rock of the Westies.  Also the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and other Disco hits.  (Hey, I graduated in '78.  There wasn't a lot else on the radio, and no Pandora in those days.)
The Moody Blues reminds me of my first boyfriend.  He was a big fan.  He was a nice boy.  We were SO young!
Queen's We Will Rock You reminds me of football games my senior year in high school.  We Are The Champions does, too.
99 Luftballoons  reminds me of dates with Matt.  It always seemed to be on the jukeboxes or radios in whatever shop or little cafe we ended up in.  Abba always reminds me of Matt.  He listened to it constantly when we were dating.  Only Fernando reminds me of something else.  Driver's Ed.  Fernando always seemed to be on the radio when we were out for driving practice with the psychotic driving instructor. 
Abba's Arrival was played as the processional for our wedding  "I've Been Waiting For You" was a song Matt dedicated to me, and "our" song was "The Way Old Friends Do." 
The hymn Lift High The Cross reminds me of the time during the rebuilding of our cathedral after the Murrah bombing.  We sang that at the dedication of the cross sent to replace our broken Celtic cross on the facade of the cathedral. 
 Scents are supposed to bring back the most vivid memories, but I know that certain songs can really take me back to another place and time pretty quickly.  The fact that so many of us love our "oldies" is testimony to that effect, I think.  Songs that remind you of good times are the ones you want to listen to when you need energy, and when you already have the blues, well, nothing works as well as the sad songs to help you get it out of your system. 
I think I'll just sit here and listen to my Pandora shuffle for a while and see where it takes me...

Time Flies

I registered on the website for my high school graduating class' 30th reunion today.
Boy, that just doesn't seem possible. How could it have been 30 years already?
Maybe I don't notice the time passing so much because I don't have kids of my own, but geez, that just can't be right. 30 years.
That makes me, um, middle aged.
(If I live to be over 90.)
There is a page at the site that lists classmates who are no longer with us. One of them is a guy I sat next to in alphabetical order since 8th grade. I sat next to him at eighth grade graduation, and again at high school graduation, and in many homeroom classes besides. It is very strange to think that he isn't out there still, waiting to get stuck with me in alphabetical order again. (Wouldn't happen now anyway, I've been married into a different part of the alphabet for 23 years now.)

I guess when you haven't seen people for years, you tend to think of them as being the same as the last time you saw them. So, all my friends from high school who haven't stayed in touch are still about 18 in my mind. Similarly, my students from my one full time class are still about 8 to me, even though I know they are in their 30s now, just like my nieces who were born the same year they were. I haven't seen them, so, they are still kids in my memory.
I wonder how many people still think of me as a much younger version of myself? I doubt my siblings do, really, but most of them haven't seen me lately, and they always kind of treated me like I was still a little kid even after I became an adult. Most of the people who were already adults when I was little are probably either not around anymore or can't remember that far back. Thank God my Mom is still around. She remembers, and she treats me like I'm a grown up. She knows me too well. We are much alike in many ways. I inherited many of my phobias from her, but I have my Pop's tendency to blow up and get stuff out of my system instead of holding onto it forever like Mom tends to.
Still, I just can't believe it has been so long since high school. Some days that feels like it happened to someone else, other days I feel like I'll wake up and have to head for my morning Art class again. (Hello Mr. Boyer, wherever you are! To this day I think of rubber cement as Elephant Snot because of you, and now there is a class full of kids who were mine in second grade who call it that, too.)
Time to climb back out of the nostalgia machine and get back to the 21st century, I guess.