Windows Rolled Down

 One of my favorite musical artists for the past five years has been Amos Lee.  He has a new album out, entitled "Mission Bell".  I heard the first single, "Windows Rolled Down" on the way to work yesterday, and although I had heard the song several times since it was released about a month ago, yesterday may have been the first time that my mind was empty enough to allow the lyrics to sink in and settle.

Simple and poignant, as I have come to expect Amos to write, this lyric caught me as I was humming along, sending my thoughts spinning down a very familiar road:

"Corn rows have a companion feel to this rocky road and this steering wheel with the windows rolled down and moon hanging low."

I know I was driving in the explorer down LeMay, but my heart thud and I was taken back to my summers spent in the dusty gravel parking lot of North Linn High School. 


For those of you who didn't have the pleasure to attend North Linn, it is a high school that was literally placed in the middle of corn fields.  The central campus contains the high school and middle school skirted by an enormous gravel parking lot, football, baseball, and softball fields, the later of which I spent five summers cultivating skills that would take me much further than glove work. 

There were seven of us in my class that were, for a long time, thrown into varsity before we were necessarily ready because we were the best that the coach had at the time.  Crouched under the lights during those humid summer nights, frustration and tears felt in our early seasons as freshman and sophomores eventually gave way to determination, perseverance, practical jokes, sisterhood, and winning seasons our junior and senior years.  And regardless of a win or loss, I always seemed to end up spend the hours after each game watching the moon rise while talking to friends, perched against my teal '94 grand am, with the window rolled down and my radio playing a mixed soundtrack of classic and then current rock.  Songs by Jimi, Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Doors, Guns-n-Roses, the Nixons, Smashing Pumpkins, Incubus, the Cure, Bush... these are the songs I've come to expect that, when heard now, take me on a three minute vacation back to that place of dust, heat, laughter, simplicity, and sweat soaked blond curls drying against my neck and back.  I don't think that I've ever had one, simple lyric, completely unrelated to the vault of memories, bring such a flood of raw feeling.


A feeling that I was unable to shake all day.  Perhaps it was the fact that my ten year reunion is around the corner, so these memories are running rapid on facebook pages.  Perhaps it was the fact that I have been playing phone tag with a best friend, also a member of that squad of seven, from high school for over a month and a half, unable to touch base.  Perhaps it was the fact that its March now, softball season in Iowa is just around the corner and this would have been the time of year that I would have been dusting off my glove and cleats, freshly retrieved from the depths of our basement. Perhaps it was that it was Wednesday and one of the parents in the waiting room was a high school baseball coach who gave me a run down on how the first week of practice went with his team (a team that is composed of virtually all Freshmen).  Or the fact that it is March and our co-ed kickball league will be starting soon- a recreational activity that returns me to the pitchers mound, only this time fueled with beer rather than gateraid.  I was wearing the nostalgia like a sweater that has become too hot to wear, with nothing but work to distract me.  I kept thinking about it, dwelling on it, itching to retreat, but couldn't seem to get out of it because there wasn't anything appropriate to replace it.


I typed the word nostalgia in Word just now to check my spelling.  I also searched the thesaurus, as I often do now-a-days (studying for the GRE can take many different forms) curious as to what may come up.  The first word chosen has taken me a bit by surprise.

Homesickness.

This was followed by what I would consider more aptly chosen words to describe nostalgia, and even what I was feeling as I let the memories roll me over- reminiscence, wistfulness, longing, and melancholy.

I would not say that I am homesick.  I love being here in Colorado and all that it has brought into my life.  I very much doubt that I will ever return to Iowa, outside of trips to visit friends and family.  But the older I get, the more I have come to appreciate the 23 years that I spent in the state.  And I fondly remember summers, a favorite season, with such a stark contrast between the season in Colorado to those in Iowa.  Sticky, humid heat that spiraled my hair.  Days upon days full of rain.  The vibrant color green that comes with fresh, healthy growth painted across low, rolling hills.  Sunsets that lasted forever, because the sun did not have anything to hide behind.  The content, companion feel of driving along a gravel road, etched through corn fields, with the window rolled down and a sweet breeze whispering to you.  These are things that don't exist here in the mountains, even with the same windows rolled down. They are the things that brought me to this place, added to who I am as a person, and taught me to appreciate simplicity.

I am sure that Amos Lee could write beautiful lyrics about the overstated, rocky craigs found here in Colorado. However, the more I think about it, the more I am moved by the lyric, I am choosing to think that he was speaking about an afternoon drive through Iowa.  I'm not sure that he has the memories tied to the state that I do, but I appreciate his ability to make my own rise with one simple lyric on an everyday drive to work.  It's also making me realize that maybe it's time to schedule a time to visit home (because it will always be home, whether I live there or not).  But that can also probably wait until the aforementioned 10 year reunion.