Do they even make those anymore? Probably not.
Okay, I’m technology-retarded.
I don’t even know what they are called. Tapes, maybe? I don’t know. I grew up listening to the same few ones in every car ride. They were eventually put away under a pile of dust because nowadays, technology moves faster than we realize it. But no matter how fast technology changes, I still love every single song and the lyrics that go with it. They spread a much different ambiance than CDs. Playing those tapes again brings back so many memories...
I remember the house where I used to live, the lady that gave me candies when she sees me on my balcony, the hole under the stairs that became the reason for my fear of spiders, the bunk beds, that ordinary painting hanging on the wall that found its way to intrigue me, the couch in the basement in which my grand-mother often laid and how I always tried to kick her off. Apparently, I were not the most obedient child but, everyone liked me so much…probably because I were so cute and adorable. I always received many presents, like stuffed animals, from teachers and neighbours even when it wasn't my birthday. I still have them. Oh, and there was my unreasonable preschool friend that I liked but she constantly played mean tricks on me; she always wins because I were so gullible. I also recall how I were always the only one who stayed awake during naptime at the daycare, my pink blanket with my name on it, the classmates that were jealous because the music teacher repeatedly picked me first...they were stupid enough to not even notice the obvious pattern. When I cried on the first day of elementary school, when I was the only one who didn’t cry when the school was flooded, when I talked to myself while playing with barbies, and one day I decided to decapitate them after drawing over their face. Then I remember that big wooden table in the kitchen where I used to leave my pink lunch box in a corner - my corner that no one touches. Sometimes, my baby sister would cry out loud when my parents yell at her at dinner…and I’d tell her to come to me.
Those were the best memories. However while I was there, I didn't actually feel that happiness or anything at all. And I think I start to understand why happiness can only be experienced in retrospect, which cartoonist Tim Kreider depicted with such wisdom in his article, Averted Vision:
In this respect it resembles averted vision, a phenomena familiar to backyard astronomers whereby, in order to pick out a very faint star, you have to let your gaze drift casually to the space just next to it; if you look directly at it, it vanishes. And it’s also true, come to think of it, that the only stars we ever see are not the “real” stars, those cataclysms taking place in the present, but always only the light of the untouchable past.I read this article many times. I had a hard time grasping its full meaning the first times I read it, but the tapes helped me understand those words better. I understand why it's usually after a break up that we fall in love and why it's only after we've lost that we start to appreciate. I'm sure we've all once blamed ourselves for being such fools but, have anyone thought that we might have been misguided by popular beliefs?
The fresh heartbreak was, in a sense, like being in a foreign country; everything seemed alien, brilliant and glinting. It was as if I’d been flayed, so that even the air hurt. When you’re that unhappy, any glimmer of beauty or consolation feels like running into an old friend abroad, or seeing mountaintops through smog. Maybe we mistakenly think we want “happiness,” which we tend to picture in very vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged intensity of experience.When we're so fully engaged in an experience, we don't think about asking ourselves whether we're happy or not but the second we do, we cease to be. Maybe the purpose of life is to create more of those happy memories by loosing ourselves in the intensity of the moment, which in turn stays encoded in the sounds, smells and other senses that were present at that very moment. In my case, some of my happiest memories stayed in those songs.
I used to ask my mom every day "Mom, did I grow up? Am I a year older now? When will I be older? Did my face change? Am I prettier now"? Finally...it's not all that great being grown up. Everything changed now. Now, no one dares to approach me because of my intimidating face; I don’t look so adorable anymore. The other day, I was shopping during my break at Pharmaprix and saw my favourite brand of chocolate chip cookies when I were little. My mom used to put some in my pink lunch box that she'd fill at a certain interval only. I can only eat those in the pink lunch box and once I finished them, I’d beg my mom to give me more but of course, it was usually a negative answer. Now that I think about it, she did a great job in developing my self-discipline. Now, I can eat whatever I want but I don’t eat those chocolate chip cookies anymore. And it made me realize that I became too obsessed with my weight and calorie intake. Also, everyone in my family eats separately wherever they want at this point. My parents don’t even have the chance to yell at anyone anymore because no one talks to anybody. I no longer talk to my sister and no one really knows what’s going on in each other’s life…
It makes me wonder what it was like in the 80's. Some of the songs were recorded by my mom and I started imagining what her life was like when she was about my age and already married, when she was bored in an empty house and trying to find something fun to do in this unfamiliar country, without her family and friends. It must have been lonely. I tried to imagine how she pictured her future. Was it much different from the reality of today? It must be. It makes me think that I should be nicer to her.
They say great songs can change our lives. I'm glad I found those tapes :)