Music and Memory

Hey –

The Fixx are playing in Seattle on Aug 28^th – if you don’t have plans for that night, you should really take L to see them. They’re in Portland the night before and I just got tickets for that show . . .

My brother emailed me sometime in June to give me a heads up about this show. I’m incredibly grateful because there’s no way I would have found my way to it without his suggestion. I am notoriously horrible about names – band names, song names, celebrity’s names. In the moment, I couldn’t conjure up even one song The Fixx was known for, but I knew if my brother was cueing me, I’d know them when I heard them.

I bought tickets that day.

As a junior-high kid (we didn’t call it middle school in the 70s and early 80s), I went to a lot of concerts – most of them with my big brother. Mom went to a few with us, but eventually, I think she burned out and decided that if I tagged along with C, there would be no hijinks, even though the nearest big city for concerts was Portland, which was a two-hour drive from home. I was the happy recipient of that policy, although C has pretty eclectic taste in music. We went to see Debbie Gibson, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, as well as REO Speedwagon, ZZ Top, Metallica, and Judas Priest. He knew all the songs – A and B sides – and which albums they were featured on. He sang along with them all, knew when the drum solo or guitar solo would come, knew the names of each band member and which other bands they’d been in. He still does. He’s a walking encyclopedia of music, and I trust his taste. Every year he sends me a CD for my birthday and while sometimes it’s a performer or band I know (Tom Petty, Steely Dan), other times it is an entirely novel act, but I always love it. He knows what I’ll like and respond to.

As a kid, I used to listen to the album for whichever band we were going to see next obsessively, reacquainting myself with the lyrics and the rhythms. I could remember songs really well, but I never knew their names or which album they were on or who was playing which instrument. I never really felt the need to catalog that or keep it in my brain.

My big brother is 50 now and I can’t even begin to imagine the number of concerts he’s been to in his life. He goes to about two a month, at big venues and small, and he always has recommendations for me. On the day of The Fixx concert in Seattle, I woke up to a series of text messages from him, complete with photos of the show he’d just seen and a review of how great it was, which albums they played music off of, and which songs were the best. I smiled and got excited for my own experience. But unlike when I was younger, I didn’t seek out any of the music to refresh my memory. I went in cold, as did my daughter. She was definitely the youngest person in the crowd, but as a musician herself, she’s usually up for a concert (especially if I’m paying).

As the early strains of “Are We Ourselves” began to play, I felt a warmth in my belly. When the lead singer pointed his microphone out toward the audience, I knew exactly where to come in and what the tune was. It happened again with “Saved by Zero,” “Red Skies,” “Stand or Fall.” At one point, I leaned over to speak into L’s ear and tell her that I was reminded of sitting on C’s bedroom floor, playing cards and listening to music – these very songs. Had we not gone to this concert, I’m not sure I would have ever thought about The Fixx or been prompted to seek out their music. I simply hadn’t remembered they existed.

There is a lot that I don’t remember about my childhood, a lot I dissociated from as I tried to find a way to survive emotionally in the firestorm of days after my brother disappeared and my parents divorced. I’ve been researching polyvagal theory lately as part of my work with adolescents and trauma and trying to understand how our bodies protect us by disconnecting from so much of what is going on around us. As I listened to the band play and felt the comforting memories of hanging out with C, listening to music, I wondered, is music the way in to those memories I want to have?

As I let my mind play with that thought, I realized that I was feeling calm and peaceful, that I was recalling the safety of being my big brother’s little sister, remembering a mundane, “normal” childhood activity that must have happened dozens of times in those frightening, sad days. I’m not so sure anymore that what I want is to use these memories to push my way in to other ones. For now, I’m simply basking in the reminder that my brother and I shared a connection through music, that it was his way of being in relationship with me and showing me the ropes, leading with his passion and inviting me in to share it. What a beautiful gesture, what an amazing, seemingly simple way to be part of each others’ lives, even though we haven’t gone to a concert together in decades.

I’m so grateful to have these kinds of memories come back to me as I get older, to remind me that there are myriad ways to connect with others, and that the ones that come most easily, most naturally, are often the ones that endure. I hope that someday my big brother and I can go to another concert together, but in the meantime, I’m definitely listening for his advice on which ones I should buy tickets to myself.