I like to put my music library on shuffle and see what music I've forgotten was there. Today I was surprised by Fun.'s "Some Nights."
I write about this song today because it brought up a memory from a few years ago, of a moment that stands frozen in time. It was a good moment. It was full of life and good company. Though insignificant in a cosmic sense, it made me smile. Let's see how I do painting this picture.
June, 2018.
School had just gotten out a few days before, and there I was, riding a big bus to a Vermont town called Peru. I'm from a town of 10,000 people, and while I know intellectually that much smaller places exist, I'm always shocked and a little freaked out when I drive through a village or a smaller settlement of people. Call me an elite New Englander if you want. It doesn't matter.
There was a group of about twenty of us heading to this town in Vermont called Peru. Four or five teachers, sixteen or so kids, all heading to a friendly school's countryside campus for a leadership retreat. The towns kept getting smaller, although they remained picturesque and quaint in character. Finally, we turned onto a dirt road and a mile later found ourselves at an energy- and carbon-neutral building that seemed to blend into the nature around it. (Vermont really is full of wonderful hippies.)
All was set for a great three days of team building and leadership development, and then the storm came that knocked out our power that first afternoon. We would have been fine where we were, but the electric water pump wouldn't run very long, and we had to worry about getting air in the pipes and ruining our friends' whole plumbing system, or something like that.
The point is, we had no running water, and kids wanted to brush their teeth before bed. Thankfully, there was a state park about two miles up the road that would let us use their facilities. Which is how I found myself driving a van full of boisterous teenagers through the woods (don't for a second think that they didn't sing "Country Roads") to use the bathroom. Being teenagers, they needed music for the five minute drive. Being a teacher, I refused to let them play explicit songs. So we compromised with Bruno Mars and similar teacher-approved music. And then "Some Nights" came on. Here it is, in case you need your memory refreshed. (I will not comment on the historical inaccuracies of the Civil War-themed music video, for your sakes. :)
Right, so the chorus has some great melodic lines that are a blast to sing. Or to belt out at the top of your lungs, if you were my students. And it was there, in that moment with the windows rolled down, with the kids so full of enthusiasm just for life, that I couldn't sing around the lump in my throat. This is one of those moments, I thought. The kind that you wish you could live in forever. The kind that squeezes itself in between seconds, spacing them out and making room for you to realize the precious nature of the environment around you and the people you are with. And suddenly you realize that even though your plans for life are all kinds of messed up right now, you wouldn't change your place at this exact moment with anyone in the world.
It's so easy for me to forget those perfect moments. They don't hog my attention like the heartbreaking ones do. But they wait patiently for me to listen to this song, or to hear that particular phrase, ready to surprise me with joy.
What a wonderful aspect of life and memory.
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