SORT OF A DEJA VU DAY

I like it when patterns emerge, so bear with me for a minute.

The sense of smell  is supposed to be the most powerful for memory stimulation, but I grew up with either a stuffy nose or the L.A. smog drowned all of it out.


It's music for me that unlocks my temporal lobe.

Perhaps because my father was a musician - maybe since I grew up with rock and roll - could be that I used to be able to hear normally.


But a simply melody, the opening notes of a song, sometimes even just the basic beat unlocks a tsunami of emotions, touch sensations, even taste. Memories of people, places, events. Even the memory of how I physically felt when I heard the song - exhausted, rested, angry, happy.

Today I am playing some old tracks - George Harrison, REM, Dave Matthews, Aretha Franklin - while I am bouncing from the computer and the completion of some pretty mundane household tasks that have been ignored for the past couple of weeks.

And I've been listening to the soundtrack from the BBC Sherlock (yes, I am that much of a geek/Sherlockian).

So there is an almost tangible web of tingles, of awareness that reaches back into the 80's, 70's, and yes, even the 60's ("Wow, dude, I didn't know you were that old!"). I can feel my cut-off jeans, my hair down my back, tied in a pony-tail -- I can feel the heat of Los Angeles pavement soaking up through my tennies (this is before running shoes, people).



Yeah, I'm getting old - because of all of these old-time memories, and I'm getting nostalgic about it.

But it's familiar - it's comfortable like an old cotton blanket - it's well-known.

And at this particular moment in time, it's what I need.

Desperately.