"Island in the Sun"~Weezer

INSOMNIA NIGHT, SO I WRITE....
I've had a pretty decent day today.  Compared to yesterday, today has been a relief.  I feel like writing, and so I will.
I sat up tonight at first listening to music to try to get my brain to just calm.  It didn't work.  It made me want to write...oh well.  
I started this blog with the intentions of writing about my trip along life with MdDS.  Its been a very long road, going on 10 months.  10 very long months.  The one thing that goes along with each post is a song.  A song that is stuck in my head, a song that means something to me, or goes along with the post that I'm writing about.  
Tonight I was listening to old songs on shuffle.  Music means more to me than most people know.  15 years of dance gave me that appreciation for music.  My beautiful dance teacher, Mrs. Eva May Morris Gregory (rest her soul) was a beautiful dancer.  She gave faith to all of her students that no matter your age, your size, your abilities, you can always dance.  She opened our eyes to music we would typically not listen to as teenagers.  I took private lessons with her for 3 years.  The last being a year that was very tough on me and my family.  She stuck by my side, she was in my corner, and she pushed me above all of my limits, physically and emotionally.  She was the mentor I needed at the time.  For an hour each week, she had my attention devoted solely to my dance, her craft, our music.  We worked together mixing different songs to find ones that worked for both of us.  She showed me to just lay in the middle of my room on the floor, blast music out and just feel it.  It was my therapy...better than any that my mom could have paid for at the time.  I fell so hard that year, my senior year, but she helped pull me out, encouraged me to move on to college.  She pushed me to spread my wings even though I was terrified.  I cried at my last lesson, I cried at my last recital, and I cried when I had to say "Until next time" last year.  
But I still carry on that love of music.  There are songs that flash me back to a moment in time. A moment in time that was just a flicker on my lifetime, or one that changed my entire course.  I love how music can just do that to you.  Pull you to that moment that you may have forgotten.  
"Island in The Sun" was a song that was being played in the courtyard of my dorm the first day that I was at VCU.  I met a friend and followed him to his room to meet his roommates.  Ron was a good friend, as well has his roommate Mike, and his suitemates Eric & Garland.  Through Eric I met Drea.  She and I became inseparable.  Ron, Eric, G, and Drea hung out a lot our freshman year.  Usually where you would find one you would find five or six of us.  Its the way it was, and it was a blast.  That one song brought that memory along with a bunch of others.  We had many dinners where we would all meet at Hibbs, or when the guys would meet us girls at our late night classes to walk us back so we wouldn't have to walk alone.  We snuck into Hollywood Cemetary and almost got caught on Halloween night, which led to Drea almost having an asthma attack.  Drea and I moved to a different dorm our second year, but we would invite all the guys for our dysfunctional family dinners.  I found most of these guys on facebook, Drea the only one I've kept in contact with the most, but I hope that I can meet up with guys soon with our families.  We've all grown, some married, some with kids.  Its neat to see how everyone turned out.
"A Certain Shade of Green" by Incubus came on next and I started to remember high school.  A song that we blared driving down Shore Drive to 89th street with Noah & Matt.  Many trips with these two to go boarding and acting crazy at the oceanfront.  To be so carefree again as I was at 16 & 17.  Remembering larger groups of us meeting down there, a caravan of cars following and racing each other.  Thinking back now, the racing on Shore Drive was probably a stupid move, but you don't think about that when you are young...but fun it was.  Up until last year, I would still go down to 89th.  I take my kids to enjoy the beach.  The whole MdDS thing took that away a little, but my goal this year is to work on being back on the beach.  My favorite of all places to be.
And don't get me started on "Canned Heat"~by Jamiroquai...I jump to NSA and dancing at the copy machine for Shay & Di doing  my best impression of Napolean Dynomite.  To think about it now there are a ton of songs that bring me back to NSA.  Too many to list.  "Thriller"~by Michael Jackson brings me to GEICO with the rest of the Mobsters in training. 
Music defines a lot of times in my life.  Like photographs help people remember, I use music.  There are songs that get stuck in my head out of no where, and I just remember like it was yesterday.  There are songs that I hear and can still remember the choreography I was taught for it.  It has brought me through some really great times, and some really horrible ones.  I'm glad I have all my memories, it reminds me of who I've become.  It makes me miss those connections I used to have, but I've come to realize that those who were meant to stay, have stayed, those that were meant to return have returned, and those who have left, are gone and tucked away into a memory of a song.