life like a movie

Do you ever think about the music that would be on a soundtrack of your life? Do you ever catch yourself in a moment that's so ripe with emotion, aesthetics, or meaning that you can almost hear some song you like rising in volume in the background? Maybe what's more common is to find yourself innocently going about your life when a certain song comes on the radio—in the car, in a store, at a cafe—and you're in a certain mood or situation that makes it resonate; and for a minute or two, it's like you've become the movie star, and the scene unfolding around you has been constructed—crafted—to so perfectly carry the mood that's overtaken you.

Today I was driving at that hour of day a poet would call the gloaming—that time just before dark when the air gets a little blue before it loses the light altogether. At that time of day, leaves still reveal themselves in silhouettes pressed against the sky; but stars and planets also sparkle; headlights flash on; street lights begin to glow. In the car I sat quietly—alone except for the radio, which was emitting old-timey jazz; old-timey jazz tunes that dance with a playful joy. This time the movie I was in wasn't set right then and there; rather, the scene was taking place in the future—in what feels like a distant future. I was marrying. Not walking down the aisle or anything so romantic; no, just sitting in a room filled with people, buzzing with chatter and the movements of those I love most dearly, and this old-timey jazz was playing. Like in a dream, I could almost see myself leaning back and watching it all as something inside me danced with that same playful joy and contentment that the music hastened in.

Why did the music take me, I wondered, to some place so distant for me now? It could be something to do with wistfulness, but I think it isn't; I think it was just something clicking in my head, responding to something else that happened a few weeks ago. I had been in class; the professor had handed each student a card with an emotion written on it, and we'd done a free association with that emotion and a set of words. We worked in groups and shared our responses, trying to get others to identify the emotion we held in our hand with the vivid associations of feel, taste, sound, food, and memory that we had made. My word had been rage, another person's happiness. The burning of hot peppers on my tongue, the melting of chocolate chips as cookies baked—my group members had quickly deduced the first few words. Last to share was our professor, and his list of associations was beautiful; we told him his word must be peacefulness or inner calm or something along this track. But he shook his head no. Perplexed, we demanded the answer. "Falling in love," he said, and a classmate promptly informed him he was wrong. "That's not falling in love," she assured him, "that's being in love." No—he tried to protest; but he stopped himself, smiling, and said maybe he would have described it differently 30 years ago. "You would have," she insisted, because Merlot and Beethoven, she was sure, were the signs of a tie that's been shared and adored for a long time. I loved her assurance about it; and I loved that what I associated with inner calm she associated with being in love.

But his words hadn't fit with in love for me at the time, so they had lingered. He had conjured a scene in a living room, with Merlot and classical music and rain falling beyond the window, and I had imagined socked feet on a table, reclining, and faint smiling; I had imagined inner peace and contentment—the kind one gets all on one's own. The kind one needs to have before the falling or the being in love fit in. Only once that quiet steady calm blissful place has been created can the playful joyful dancing be more than fleeting, be sustainable by every breath to be taken for the rest of time. This way it has something sturdy to fall back on in those inevitable if often infinitesimal moments between musical movements, when we all take a breath and a pause. The trumpeter inhales deeply before exhaling the old-timey jazzy tune. I inhale deeply thinking about the emotion the song conjured inside me, knowing I have a sturdy place ready to set it whenever the real-life version comes along.