Athletes

So, a while back, I wrote a few times about this song, this cd, this music. This one particular string of notes about three minutes long, and how fantastic it was. It was small, an allusion here and there, but it was not actually small, at all.

The kids and I were in the car. We were always in the car, because I was always shuttling them to someone else's so that I could go to work. The radio was not functioning properly. The windows were down, even though it was cold, because after a certain portion of your life has been spent in one car or another, you can no longer stand to have the windows closed.

We were having a bad day. A bad day. It was shortly after Zoe's birthday, a week or three, and she was still angry that her dad was not there for their birthdays, which are three days apart. I was angry also, Jake was upset because everyone else was upset, I was not handling things well. I couldn't help Zoe because I am very, very careful not to badmouth their dad and for the last weeks I had nothing, absolutely nothing, to give her because I had nothing to say that was not lava. So things were bad. They did not want to go to their grandparents', which was our destination. Jake would not talk, had not talked for days, and I could not stop crying long enough to care. So we were at a stop light, and this car came up next to us and had his windows down also. Dave Matthews' 'Crash' was playing, and I was staring at this car, debating whether I should turn the car into the river because I could not see any end to what was going on, and because I was short sighted and, I don't know. It was a difficult time.

Anyway, 'Crash' ended, and we had sat through at least three lights because I did not know what to do. This car had been there for only a few seconds. The next song came on, and it was this thing, this electronic business, and I thought how strange for such a song to follow Dave Matthews. It was bouncing and popping along, not happily but certainly not in the vein of a Dave Matthews playing station, when suddenly it launched into this bridge, this chorus, this aching, swirling fusion of notes and words that were so stunning, so maddening, so personal and painfully beautiful that I could not believe that it had not been written for me. It hurt to see it coming out of this car, with this guy sitting on his phone like something amazing was not happening right in front of him, not even caring or noticing the stricken world outside his front seat. The light changed, he was gone, and so was the song. But I stared at the absence of the car for several moments, and listened to the absence of the music, and then Zoe said That was a very nice song. I said Yes, it was a very, very nice song. And Jacob said Can we buy that? I said I do not know what it was, but we can certainly find out.

Zoe furiously wrote down every word she could remember. I told her it didn't matter if they were in the right order, because Google would take care of that. We went to my parents' where Zoe did not mind being left there because they had a computer and we didn't, and she could find the song. Jake hummed the song while he pulled the heads off of Lego men, and seemed happy. I went to work where I listened to screaming survivors for twelve hours while I searched the world for this song, this song, this piece of noise that had saved me for a moment.

I could not find it. Zoe could not find it. It was nowhere. I started to wonder if it had not really been on the radio, if it had been for us and us alone, and if that boy in his car had been listening to Everclear while I listened to to something completely different. It was gone. I would never hear it again, and I was devestated. But two weeks had passed, two weeks of searching and humming and hoping and not breathing, long enough to pass over the state I had been in, to see it from above and realize that, well, things will get better. Things, while they may not get BETTER immediately, will get different, and different is better. Things will change. Something will happen, and we will be all right.

Zoe suggested asking the radio station. I did not know what radio station it had been on, but I figured Dave Matthews was going to rule out several of them. 94.7, I figured, safe bet. Big station, Dave Matthews, based on the guy driving the car and his bumper stickers, 94.7. I sent an email to the program director, it said "On this date (date) at this time (time) you played a song. It had a poppy, electronic intro and was not a poppy, electronic song. It followed Dave Matthews' Crash and I wonder if you know what it was. Thank you." Another week went by, and I was forgetting what the song sounded like, and that made me very, very sad. Then it came, so small, so easy for him, the director. Six words, you know? So simple. No intro, no exit, just "Stars of Track and Field-With You'.

Stars of Track and Field-With You. Stars of Track and Field-With You. Over and over, in case something happened and my email was lost and I did not know. I don't know, I was a mess. A mess. And then, while I knew the name and address of the song, I could not find it. Anywhere. Then I was at Music Millenium and they had it, a whole section, with its own little cardboard divider. I almost cried. The store people seemed to understand. Something so, so silly. But not at all. This song.

Music can do that. Music is like that. No one can deny the power of an amazing song. Songs can divide, unite, build up and tear apart. Sometimes, in the right weather and at the right time and coming out of the wrong radio entirely, a song can save your life. This one did, I don't like to think about how close it has come, but you know what, it has not been that close since. And I don't expect it to.