Dear Diane,
I am in one of my odd Saturday nights at the beginning of a new fixer house project. I am listening to Pandora on my computer, drinking wine and filling nail holes in the walls.
The station I have created is called "Aaron Neville". The songs this choice offers me as the night wears on begin to sound like our high school years: Bill Withers, Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - I am transported to 9th grade, to knowing you and to my memories of your stories of the Maxie family and the cool Seattle connections you and your family had. It seemed your favorite extended family was a black family, and when you told of the parties and fun times I was entranced and a bit jealous. It sounded like there was so much life, laughter and music.
The songs are about overwhelming love, sadness, feeling uncertain and weak, about wanting to dance- \move the body to anything.
I remember how I admired and envied your experiences with another culture, one so close, and yet a lake and a bridge away. I am sure this admiration was one of the big reasons I joined the busing program to Garfield High School from the safe suburbs of Bellevue to the unknowns of the Central Area of Seattle.
Listening to soul music reminds me of the vapid white culture I was trying to slough off. The world was exploding around us with the War in Vietnam, John, Martin and Bobby killed while we were still in grade school. There was so much to process for a 15 year old kid who was paying attention.
We were hungry for the world, you, Lori and me. I don't know why or how it happened, but the 3 of us had this craving to break out, to find some answers, make some black friends and become renewed in the process. We sat on a bus for over an hour every morning to go to a completely unfamiliar school. What a bonding experience that was, and how difficult it became for me. I was petrified most of the time.
Soul music, what more perfect backdrop for those memories. The synthesis of pain and joy at once, affirming life. How much I suspected, but how little I knew then of what that music represented in our country's horrible history.
It is fitting that I am listening to 70's Soul Music in 2015, 47 years since we met. The times are just as confusing and uncertain as they were then. Now young black people are still being shot by police, and the world is still erupting in pockets of violence. Our country is still engaged in actions of 'war', and the chasm between the rich and the poor is worse than ever.
The details change, the power structures dividing and creating fear stay the same. The music, thankfully, is still there: "Lean on Me", "Stand By Me", ~ "Ain't no Sunshine When She's Gone".
