Sunday Morning

Just under five years ago, I had to say goodbye. I remember a conversation I had had with my brother years ago, as we headed home from college on our daily commute. I mentioned that I would love to own a Jeep Wrangler. Rather than silently let me fantasize, rolling his eyes at my lame dream (at least my sister dreamed of owning a sports car), he responded that maybe a Cherokee would be more practical, so that we could fit the whole family in it. Instead, I ended up rolling my eyes.

Jump ahead a few years, and my time had come. I was living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had a job and no kids, and the lease on my fuel-efficient, affordable Saturn SL sedan was ending. With the harsh Michigan winters, four-wheel-drive made sense. And so, I got my Jeep!!! I loved it. Driving with the top down, with co-workers, heading out to lunch. Heading out to Muskegon or Grand Haven on a beautiful summer day. I didn’t love having to change out the hard top for the soft top, or, honestly, how the poor insulation of the hard top made it pretty cold in the wintertime. The rust – not so great either. But I loved that car. When we moved to Cleveland, and I became a full-time mom, I traded cars with my husband (so I could have an easier time getting the car seat in and out of the back seat), so rides in the Jeep would mean freedom, a respite from the daily business of diaper changes and late night feedings. That is, until the first winter, when my husband had to say goodbye to his dear Corolla and I got a much more practical (and dog-friendly) Subaru wagon. Meanwhile, my husband kept driving the Jeep.

Until five years ago. That was when he got his new car. Which included trading in the Jeep. We were going to trade in the new car on a Sunday, so when I went to a meeting Saturday night, I took the Jeep. As I reached my meeting, the song “Sunday Morning” by Maroon 5 was on the radio, and I sat, car parked, to listen. “someday it would lead me back to you,” they crooned. Perhaps that was the little bit of comfort that I needed. I was ready to let go. The next morning, I offered to drive the Jeep to the dealership, and once again, on Sunday morning, I heard the song again, sealing its fate as forever linked in my mind to my Jeep.

Jump ahead five years, to tonight. Driving home in my minivan, three boys in tow, I heard the song again. And it so richly brought back all these memories. And I wonder whether, instead of even trying to put together a scrapbook (I’ve tried, and I’ve failed, to get into scrapbooking; the scrapbook I’ve started for my eight-and-a-half-year-old has reached when he was 1 ½ weeks old, and thus I’ve not yet started for the other two), the future of memory “albums” need to simply be digital, with musical soundtracks (perhaps this babbling of mine with the song playing the background would do).

Interestingly (to me, anyhow), the next song on the radio was Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting.” I sang along, somehow remembering every single word despite not having heard the song in at least fifteen years. And it took me back…to the song. To being a kid in Strongsville, Ohio. But it did not remind me of some lost love, or some relationship that I was in when the song came out (because I wasn’t; I just liked Richard Marx). And I have to say, it was kind of nice. There are songs that just make me smile, the kind I will overplay until my husband starts to hate it (Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” or Owl City’s “Fireflies”)There are songs that I simply don’t like (like “Closing Time” or “Single Ladies”). And then there are songs that I prefer not to listen to because they bring back memories I’d rather not remember, associations I’d rather not make. Not because they’re necessarily bad, but because I’m not that person anymore – I’ve grown up – and the music has the power to transport me back to the person I used to be.

I accept that I am the person I am today because of everything in my past, both good and bad, and so I would not change a thing because I don’t know what effect any particular change would have on who I am now (this logic, of course, assumes that one is happy with oneself in the present). I believe that if there’s anything I don’t like in my life, I will either do what I can to change it or accept it, but I will not dwell on the negative (I admit that I will, on occasion, vent, which is useful when trying to figure out whether something needs to be changed or accepted). I know what I believe, and it frustrates me that I get thrown off my game by a “hip three-minute ditty.”

Perhaps I should just switch to listening to NPR.