Time travelling and vandalizing metaphorical trees
January 17, 2022
Today you sent me two songs— one to start my day with, the other for me to melt to. What you know for sure is that I loved them both. What you aren’t quite aware of is that I am of the opinion that you somehow always know what I need to hear to calm the anxious hamsters in my head. How you do it is a mystery to me. Perhaps it’s ESP. Perhaps it’s magic. Perhaps it’s a skill you just naturally gain as someone who’s sonically inclined and can transform the world in and outside of ourselves into symphonies of emotions.
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In Bread’s album Baby I’m-a Want You, Everything I Own comes one song after the titular track you sent me. I haven’t heard either of these songs in ages and hearing both of them today sent me back to my childhood. I told you it felt like I was 6 years old again, waking up at home. What I didn’t tell you was that hearing both of them made me cry.
I was overcame with a wave of nostalgia and I felt a mellow kind of sadness upon realizing that 1) it is impossible to go back in time and relive those perfect memories forever and 2) if it were possible to go back in time and just stay in my 6 year old state permanently, I would deny myself that wish because I wouldn’t want to lose the experience of living the future that makes my memories all the more precious.
Time and everything that propels us forward make everything precious. We are susceptible to change, to ageing, to death, to fading in the minds of those who knew us best. I don’t mind being forgotten someday, but if people were to remember me, I hope they remember that I loved ferociously— life and everyone around me. And if I were to remember the people in my life, I would like remember them with love and all the moments in between that helped me define what love is to me.
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You wrote me a song and sent me the recording. I have never had a song written about me nor have I ever been sincerely told that I had inspired the creation of something beautiful. Have I ever told you how your gift always leaves me speechless and in awe?
I read a poem recently about words and meaning and how people will carve hearts on trees just so that in case the real heart stops beating, there is still proof that the love endures even after death. When we carve hearts on trees, we’re letting ourselves and our feelings known to an audience we might not be ever able to meet. When we carve hearts on trees, we’re asking to be remembered, to be understood, to be heard, to be seen. And I feel like creating art is a lot like that, a lot like carving hearts on trees.
And when you carve hearts on trees, I count myself especially lucky that I get to hear what they sound like. The tiny hearts. The reject hearts. The draft hearts. The hearts that you think seem corny. The hearts that talk about the depth of moments so small. The hearts that sound like they’re aching and longing for something that you can’t quite grasp yet.
Now here you are carving another heart, this time with my name etched on it and it makes my real heart feel warm and full. And, as with all the hearts you’ve carved even prior to our meeting, the warmness and fullness I feel makes me grateful to be alive and even more so knowing that I am alive in a world where you and I exist at the same time.
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Thank you for today’s songs. Thank you for today’s thoughts. Thank you for carving me a heart. And thank you for lengthening the definition of love and all that it means to me.
