The entire album sends me back to different years.

I love looking through pictures. Pictures in albums, in frames, on facebook, on walls - anywhere! I love glancing through little rectangles that intangibly connects my brain to another time. It's like my eyes scouring through these photographs plugs me into that moment. I guess this is the writer in me, but I always find myself running through my senses and memories. I strive to remember the smells, sights, sounds of the moment. People say that all the time, the whole "go through the five senses" bit. But this is different because it's not just describing something off the top of your head. Looking through pictures makes me call on actual memories. The imagery is real. I love thinking about how amazingly vivid the moment was. For instance, I may not have realized it at the time the picture was taken, but that picture of the beach makes me think of the hours I spent sifting through powdery sand looking for seashells with my friend, drenched in saltwater sweat. It makes me think of the stiff sun-dried texture of my hair. Like seashore straw. The gulls didn't care that the sun was setting and it was dinner time, they squawked anyways.

I don't always realized it in the moment, but my life is poetry. Everyone's lives are poetry. We get caught up in the moment and sometimes fail to look at details. And that's okay, because you're supposed to live your life, not observe it. But that's why I like pictures. I can call upon the beauty of an afternoon a long time ago or an evening from last summer, or a birthday party when I was six and remember details that I couldn't put words to at the time. When you put words to the photographs though, to the memories, it sounds like music.

, it tells a story I'd almost forgotten.

Today I took the long way home. My usual carpool buddy wasn't with me, so the road was all mine. I drove up and down the usual main roads like a pacing animal. I enjoyed the subtle familiarity of traffic, the brief moments when I'm bitterly aware that no matter how hard I try, I'll never know the people trapped in their little windows-sealed, doors-locked transportation pods around me. I am surrounded by people who are determined not to be known. Faces without names. I took the long way home. I passed by my end of the old neighborhood, now overcome with scraggly grass and litter. I drove in the middle of lower class traffic, my dirty grey Toyota blending in like it always belonged there. It does belong there, now that I think about it. I drove past mom's old high school. Man, it's gone downhill. Kids walk home with friends, listening to ipods, acting like a side-walk version of the pavement's mayhem. I took the long way home, listening to Miranda Lambert ramble about the house that built her. I'm a picky country fan; I don't like just any hillbilly sob story on the radio. This song was a keeper though; I could relate to it. I drove all around my old neck of the woods and remembered a lot about why I am who I am, about what made me. I reminisced and smiled and teared up all in different waves. I spent a lot of time thinking back to the original me. I took the long way home today.

Track 8

Alright, so track 8 of my favorite CD is one of those songs that will just about move me to tears. When I play it in my car, it's not like I'm just listening to it anymore; it's like I am in the music, like I'm balancing myself between the notes. I listen to it a lot in my car, especially at night for some reason (more dramatic, I guess). One night when I got home, I was so moved by the song that I just had to try and write about how it felt when I listened to it. I knew instinctively that my words wouldn't be able to adequately describe track 8, but if I didn't try, there was a chance I'd just explode. Here's what happened:

"The music moves me.

I am entirely convinced that ir pushes mortality out of me

And that it strums my soul when I play it.

Sometimes I swear my soul flies out of my Body Shell

And something else grows inside.

It's bizarre and too much.

Sometimes it scares me,

Sometimes - if I let go - I can understand and almost enjoy the feeling.

Usually, in my car, I speed up for it.

But tonight, in a plum rain, I slowed down,

Just to see what happens.

The effect: Chaos.

My past, my dreams, distant fragrant joys, disappointments, knowledge, philosophy

exploded into storm clouds of greasy gears that either couldn't turn or spun out of control.

I was afraid of the incoherence.

Everything slipped through my hands before I could maneuver my thoughts.

I made myself let go.

Storm clouds of everything I've been, am, will be rolled through me.

Not coherent or chronological, but static and dusty.

It was like a machine that ran with no key or obvious destination.

Storm clouds

And Chaos.

When the track was over, I was overcome with the feeling of stillness.

It was like a fisherman in his home,

Trying to get reacquainted with company that doesn't rock all around you.

Stillness."

Well, that's what it did to me. I think we all have our track 8 songs. The songs, movies, books, quotes, pictures, artwork, people, pets, places that make us feel in touch with something deeper than what we usually portray. Your track 8 song is sacred to you and you may not even understand why. Here's to you, track 8.