Later in the Day than Usual

It has been so long since I’ve visited here that I wonder how to begin again. No way to recount the place I’ve seen.

Perhaps I’ll start with where I presently sit: in my office. Waiting for class.

Gary was talking about Blondel Park in Amsterdam. He loves that park—I think he runs there when he visits Amsterdam every winter. His mention reminded me of a group I listened to in the early 1970’s—The Amazing Blondel. I own their album, but, of course, I can’t play it because I’ve abandoned the use of turntables. But as soon as I recalled them to mind, I wanted to hear them, and so I went to iTunes and purchased more than a few of their songs. Apparently they re-formed, or re-united sometime in the recent past.

So I was listening to them today in the car, and as I listened to the music I heard it first in my body. I was transported to the time and place where first I heard them—to the moments in my life when I was still in my twenties, and it was still the 1960’s (even though it was early 1970’s). Life was full and tense and frightening, and I think I was terrified, and confused, and lost most of the time. And the music of Amazing Blondel took me there; and driving in my car what I viscerally felt was that time in my life, was me at that time in my life.

I have different terrors and confusions and moments of being lost now; but being transported back there by Amazing Blondel gives me a perspective on the present and the past. Music can do that for me better than most stimuli—except, perhaps, my dreams.