Chacos: Dancing in the moonlight

Walking through the grocery store aisle looking for something to pair with the evening’s taco dinner, the song playing over the loudspeaker comes to a crescendo. I’m ready. As I reach for a can of refried beans, I sing the chorus audibly, and my hips give a little shake. Apparently, I’m now a spectacle, because I earn a few looks from other shoppers. No one knows I’m listening to one of my all-time favorite songs, and I’m instantly reminded of a dear friend. The song swells my heart and puts a grin on my face in ways I struggle to understand.

A few years ago, I played a couple of songs from an artist I liked until my children knew all the words by heart. I imagined we were a singing family like the Von Trapps or the Jackson 5 and encouraged them to sing along with me while we watched the music videos on repeat. I wanted the musician’s voice to fill them up and overwhelm them, eventually bringing them to tears like the songs did for me. All I can say for sure is that when the artist’s music comes on the radio today, my children all roll their eyes in perfect harmony.

My brother spends a lot of time in his car, and he regularly sends me screenshots of songs that he listens to on his daily commute. He has time-machine moments — songs that take him back to a memorable time and place. Often, they’re classic rock anthems from The Eagles, The Moody Blues or The Mamas and the Papas. When I play one of the nostalgic songs my brother gifts me, I am immediately transported to the back seat of my parents’ car sitting next to my little brother while we play a game of “I Spy.” My parents sing along from the front as we ramble down the road, and I’m sure my brother forgets I also used to torment him as Mama Cass sang “California Dreamin’.”

Some music takes over my entire body because I start dancing erratically when I listen to Meat Loaf’s theatrical and ridiculous rock epic, “Paradise By The Dashboard Light,” or when I sing “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor as if I’m the most empowered individual to ever enter a karaoke bar. When there’s tension that needs releasing, I channel my inner rage by turning to Eminem and throw punches in midair. When I need to reduce stress, I play calm and soothing music like I did in the delivery room when my first child was born. Although it took all night, I survived childbirth with the help of Enya’s new age, ethereal rhythms.

In adolescence, I traded individual vinyl 45 records with my friends, and as we got older, we made mixed cassette tapes by pirating our favorite songs from the radio. We hoped our compilations pinpointed our many moods while we desperately tried to express our thoughts, feelings, fears and dreams. I still have the mixtape my college boyfriend made for me one summer, weaving a promise that we’d be together forever by blending upbeat love songs I liked with happy Grateful Dead tunes he enjoyed. 

The same boyfriend unceremoniously dumped me at the start of the next school year. I was a trainwreck of sobs and snot that lasted all autumn. The only reason I crawled out of bed each morning was to press Play on my small portable boombox and listen to R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” Michael Stipe sang to me about comfort and resilience while he expressed the grief I was feeling with a perfect combination of vocal melody and underlying harmony. At the end of the semester, my roommates vowed to hurt me and move out if I dared play that song again. I never did.

Although there is a lot of music I can’t remember by name, I know I’m not alone when an emotional memory triggers a deep feeling when it’s played. Last month, we took my father to a large concert hall where we enjoyed listening to “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” his favorite. When the final movement began and the vocal chorus commenced, my cousin nudged me to look across my seat. One of my children was visibly restless, picking lint off his shirt. My father was sobbing. Later over dinner, my dad explained that my grandfather would sit his three young sons on their couch in the living room to play classical music every evening after dinner. My dad said those were the hours their home was in complete harmony. 

Part of music’s magic is there’s a lot of complex things happening in the brain when we smile, cry, dance, pick lint off a shirt during a symphony or sing along to a song. We’re tuned for music, even when we’re not paying attention or seemingly don’t care. I don’t always remember the name of a song or why I love it, but somehow my body remembers. That’s why when a few notes of my favorite song are played in the grocery store, I get ready. I’ll keep singing even if people stare because I know you can’t dance and stay uptight.