EXAMPLE: "SONGS CONNECTED TO A MEMORY"
1. Mad About You, Belinda Carlisle
2. Melt With You, Modern English
3. While We Have The Sun, Mirah
4. We Close Our Eyes, Oingo Boingo
5. Halah, Mazzy Star
Mad About You, Belinda Carlisle
Who: Me and Jay
What: Sneaking out at night
Where: Anaheim
When: High School
Why: Teenage love
This moment was filled with naiveté, a little stupidity, teenage hormones, and a riskiness that captured this time period for me. I was looking for love in the wrong place. I learned what it felt like to not be in sync with a partner for the first time. I carried this new knowledge
into my next relationship, one filled with many moments of us on the same page.
“When I was a teenager, I snuck out my window. I often tore my faded old pajama dress on nails and stucco. Sometimes, I was whisked away by a boy named Jay who drove his father’s passenger van––a van meant for transporting a community of deaf adults on field trips. At 1am, when my parents were most assuredly asleep, we drove the empty streets of the suburbs listening to music. We were wide awake against the stillness within the houses we passed. I always felt free and alive in these transgressions. Once, while stopped at a light, I rolled down the window and stuck my head out in the soft rain. I let the cold wind reshape my hair as Jay accelerated. At that moment, the cheesiest song in the world blasted from the radio: Belinda Carlisle’s “Mad About You.” The song transported me to a different emotional state, one with dreamy pastels, chiffon dresses, and an invisible camera crew capturing my budding teen romance. Jay was unaffected by the syrupy lyrics I quietly sang under my breath, even though we'd be making out on the bench-seat behind us moments later. To this day, when I hear that sappy song, I think about how naive I was at fifteen. I was mad about him, but he wasn’t mad about me.”