Songs in My Head

s

Songs in My Head

We all have a touch of it, many of us deny, ignore, repress, or try to persuade ourselves, that a sixth sense doesn’t really exist.  How many times have you known who was on the phone begins to ring, or know that it is going to ring moments before it does,  as it, or had a thought that you should leave more time to get where you are going and find yourself in the middle of a traffic jam?  There are lots of little things that happen that most of us ignore, but most of us don’t attribute to ESP or a sixth sense.  And then there are those who say that they know the future or can read it.  Many don’t believe in that, and it is true that, some psychics are fraudulent; it is just difficult to know the real from the fakes. 

In our family, there is a strain that runs through, I only know three generations, as the lore from before my parents’ generation is lost.  My late aunt, Fredi had the gift, but even she chose to use her “gift” to manipulate her children.  Her daughter, my cousin does readings, and is often accurate when she chooses to listen.  Her son, John, has a touch of the gift but has chosen not to spend time refining it.  One story I like to tell of John dates back to a time early in our reconnection when we were both fairly well along in years.  I had put in a call to him and left a message on his home answering machine, to invite him and his wife, for the first time to our annual Fireworks party.  He did not return my call, and after a while I became annoyed and started mentally yelling at him.  After a few days, of looking at my RSVP list, noting he had not called and yelling again, my phone rang.  It was John, yelling at me “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”  In those days before cell phones, he had been camping in the National Seashore and had gotten neither, my invitation or my phone call, but he had been aware that I was trying to reach him and upset that he was not responding.  Now when I want to contact John, I don’t use the phone, cell or internet, I simply think about wanting to talk to him, for a few days and he will call.

My gift is a little stranger, but in recent years, I have become aware that I have a gift.  I hear songs in my head.  I can hear you saying,”Sure we all do.”  Yes, I know the phenomenon of having songs get stuck in your head, and that is what I thought was happening to me.  What I have discovered is that when a song starts either at a time when it seems silly to be hearing a song or when a song goes on and on for days or weeks at a time, there is a message. 

The morning after my husband, of forty two years, dropped dead without warning, I woke with a love song playing in my head, as clearly as if it were playing on the radio.  But, my house was silent, all of my visitors were still sleeping and I was the only one awake that early dawn.  And I heard the song.  That morning it was John Denver’s “Annie’s Song”

ANNIE'S SONG (John Denver)

You fill up my senses like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses come fill me again.

Come let me love you, let me give my life to you
Let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms
Let me lay down beside you, let me always be with you
Come let me love you, come love me again.

It didn’t make any sense to me on that very sad, first day of my widowhood for me to be hearing songs, no less a love song, but I listened and I heard, and I cried.  The next day and for months on end I heard another song, heard it in Frank Sinatra’s inimitable voice.  In the beginning I heard only some of the words, and then I remembered that my late husband could never remember all the words, but he loved to sing.  This song was Time After Time

“Time, after time, I’m telling you that I’m so lucky to be loving you.” I even heard it while I was standing graveside, and while others were singing “Oseh Shalom”  The song continued to play on, in my head, for quite a while, I didn’t notice when it faded, but even now, more than ten years later, I will hear it at odd times.

        Then several years later, as I was helping my mother to move out of her house into an apartment, another song began.  This time I heard “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”  I think this song was my unconscious speaking to me, I had been spending my winters sharing this house with her, and when she moved into the apartment there would not be enough room for me to spend an entire winter with all my hobbies and activities.  It was to be the end of another era in my life, and I was not a happy camper, nor was she. 

        While I was house hunting in California, my real estate agent had asked whether I wanted to live on a lake or whether I wanted a view.  Indicating that I didn’t really care one way or another, she broke the showings into mornings for houses with views and the afternoon into houses on the lake.  As we drove up to the first house on the lake, a song went on in my head, softly at first, the song was “Old Cape Cod” and when we came to the house that I was to buy, the song got so loud that I was certain my agent could even hear it.  I apologized to her, told her about the song, and she laughed. 

        I have heard songs now and again since then, when they play for more than just a morning or an afternoon, I pay attention.  One morning, just recently the lyrics “Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
everything that's wonderful…” by Lesley Gore

I have no idea why I am hearing this song.  Maybe, it is because, I have finally, nine months after putting it on the market, sold that house on the lake.  Maybe it is because after years of writing, I have started to submit my poems to contests and publication, and it is telling me that I will get some recognition.  And maybe it is because… (Think, shrugging shoulders.)  Often, it just takes a long time for me to figure out what the songs are about, or just what the message is about.  Meanwhile, I am enjoying the joy that comes each time I hear the song, and each time it unexpectedly comes out of my mouth and I hear it in my ears. I wonder, what it wonderful thing is coming my way.  Stay tuned, when I figure it out, I will share it on my blog.