“If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.” - Toni Morrison
On weekend mornings we could hear the music start downstairs. My father was a fan of CDs and speakers. He would always take Zay and I to the music store whenever we did well at school or in a game to buy us a new album. But our mother, she was all about records. She was about the smoothness, the high notes and instrumentals. Especially during the holidays, she’d break out the record player, put on one of her favorite Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald records. Nat King Cole was a special favorite. She’d put him on and get Zay and I to dance, both of our hands in hers as we spun her around and she laughed. She would sing the words so sweetly, until my dad would come in and pull her away for a dance. I watched the way they would stare at each other, the love and adoration in their eyes, the way they would move along with the music almost as if they were floating. I remember thinking, man, what I would give for a love like that.
The fire they died in destroyed all the records, all the speakers and CDs. But when we arrived in Elisabeth, I walked into my shared room with Zay and found a record player that Simon had gotten for me. He told me that he wasn’t sure what records I liked but that he noticed that I would perk up the most when they spoke about music, that I could always be found with headphones in. He thought he was introducing me to a classic but really he was just welcoming me home even more. He was the one who introduced me to Chet Baker and Perry Como. There were nights we used to sit reading with the classics playing between us, the only sound other than the music that could be heard was the sound of us flipping page after page. It’s harder to listen to the songs now, they bring tears to my eyes and the pages become soaked with tears. But every now and then, I put them on, take a seat and think of him. A man who the universe gave to us to love us wholly and fully until he parted.
I can see him too, with Marcus, glimpses I’d catch on the way up the stairs of them in the home office. When Simon couldn’t dance anymore, Marcus would sit with him as they listened, holding hands, closed eyes, sometimes looking at each other. And I had the same thought, of how beautiful it would be to have a love like that. I guess in an almost embarrassing way, it’s what I’ve been looking for all this time. This missing piece, this...want that has been lingering in my chest from my early days. To love and be loved, is there anything greater?
But until I find that moment, that person who changes it all, the person who will make my heart soar and ache all the same; I have my music, my dreams and fantasies. I have the melodies and words to take me away in my mind, to a place where everyone I’ve ever loved is alive and well.
Until then I’ll close my eyes and let the music move me, give me hope and remind me that no matter where I go: there will always be love.
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” -James Baldwin
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