Part of Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life
Loud Music. I blast it in the car. I’ve always loved loud music, wanted the sound to fill the space.
Of course, this tracked at 16. Picking up friends on the way to school, I must have slipped a cassette in. Tori Amos filled the ol’ Hyundai, but also The Doors, Nirvana, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez. I had the best mixed tapes. I’m wondering if I turned the music up or down when I pulled into the school parking lot.
Once, freshman year, I blasted Jewel in my dorm room. I don’t know why this memory pops in my head so often. Was I getting ready for something? Was my roommate there? Did the entire building hear Who Will Save Your Soul?
On my way to work these days, I choose a playlist to turn all the way up. My team started a “Hype” playlist, so that’s a good way to start a day with positivity.
Playlist poetry should be as popular as book spine poetry, don’t you think? What’s your current Playlist Poetry?
Hype!
Make Way
Good Morning
Rise Up
Rise
Be Cool
High Hopes
Glitter & Gold
Not that I am always strong enough to choose the “Hype” playlist. It takes a certain strength to set intentions like that every morning.
Sometimes my morning playlist is just a shuffle. I skip through songs until I land on the one I need. But, I don’t know the one I need until it starts. I say, “No.” to my van as I skip through, sometimes listening to a few seconds, sometimes going backwards giving a song another chance, always annoyed that the shuffle doesn’t know me better.
Morning Shuffle
I am -
no
What I am -
no
Therefore I am -
no
Unstoppable -
no
Truckin’-
no
Invincible -
no
I Will Survive -
no
Run the World (Girls) -
no
Don’t Give Up -
no
I’m the Best -
no
Mad Woman -
no
Mad Woman -
no
Exactly How I Feel -
no
Players -
no
Touch the Sky -
no
Kings & Queens-
no
Rap God
I turn the music down when I pull into the school parking lot.
I mean, not all the way down.
My son just got his license, and right before his test, the driving teacher went through an amazing list of things to know about having and using a car. She reminded him that cell phones and friends are the leading causes of accidents. She went over what emergency supplies to keep in the trunk, when to check the oil (every fourth or fifth time you get gas) and how he needs to watch a YouTube of how to change a tire and jump start a car before he’s stuck on a country road with no signal needing to do those things.
It was a great list, and I wondered how many other things have I forgotten to teach him? He’s 17. I am running out of time! Later I told him that even though I love listening to loud music in the car, as a new driver, he should not be blasting music. He needs to concentrate.
“Oh, no. I will be very focused.” He said this very seriously. He does blast music in his room some, but he also turns my car music down a lot. He might be embarrassed by my music. He is a teenager.
I’m not a teenager or in college still so I don’t know how to feel about my propensity for loud music. Is it embarrassing? I’m not sure how I’m judged for it, but I know I’ve been judged.
“Turn it down!”
”Can you turn it down?”
A few years ago I found out I had a 30% hearing loss.
Check yourself reader – did you have a moment of assumption?
“Duh. You shouldn’t have been playing all that loud music!”
But actually the hearing loss was something I was born with, they say.
So maybe my loud music is how I hear.
Maybe my loud music is
HOW
I hear
People might judge my loud music, tell me to turn it down. They may sigh with exasperation when I need them to repeat themselves.
I try to remember this feeling, remind myself that you can’t always notice other people’s struggles. I try to remember it when I sigh with exasperation at others.
I try. But I’m a work in progress. So sometimes I just turn up my music.
On a Thought 