Excerpts from my journal

From 8/08/10

Today while driving from Enterprise to Tuscaloosa, I played the Garden State soundtrack.  I borrowed this CD from Jen.  About the third song in came a song -- In the Waiting Line--.  This song was one of the ones that was on my Switzerland playlist in the summer of 2007.  Jen made me a playlist before I went to Switzerland, and I played it almost daily.  Every day, I took a bus from Bulle to Fribourg and back again.  About one hour on that bus every day.  And at other times I listened to this song while on the quiet, smooth, and efficient Swiss trains.  Going to Vienna, to Zurich, to Cinque Terre, to Munich, to Paris.  I haven't really listened to this song since I returned.  Listening to it brought back all of the feelings of that summer.

When I hear those songs now, a wave of feelings come over me.  I feel overwhelmed.  I feel I should respect them, treat them reverently, as if they changed my life.

Because I know something changed while I was in Switzerland.  I felt happy that summer.  I came out of a depression I didn't even realize I was in.  Those songs bring me back, back to a time I sat for at least an hour each day and was still.  I didn't understand the language around me.  I didn't know where I was.  Although I was with wonderful people, I was a stranger.  I was alone.  But it was a good alone.  I became myself, I found myself.  Again, anew.

I wonder what feelings and memories will surface years from now, when I hear today's songs.

In the Waiting Line