PTSD ca. 1979
“Longing, rusted, furnace, daybreak, seventeen, benign, nine, homecoming, one, freight car.”
“Miranda.”
My daughter and I enjoy musical theatre. This past holiday weekend, we decided to indulge ourselves via Netflix while the boys watched something big-budget and age-inappropriate on the TV downstairs. I was thinking about the 1982 Kristy McNichol/Christopher Atkins “The Pirate Movie” but ended up watching the 1983 Rex Smith/Linda Ronstadt “The Pirates of Penzance.” It’s an odd little operetta with some squirmingly awkward romantic storylines, songs that go on way too long, and acrobatic movements by Kevin Kline as the pirate king that, if the movie weren’t clearly produced on a shoestring budget, I would believe were special effects (start at about 1:50 min mark and you will see what I mean https://youtu.be/7WTSlr_WRgo).
But Kevin Kline’s gravity-defying balance didn’t traumatize me; Rex Smith’s beachy good looks did.
As I was watching the movie, I was--what?--distracted or troubled or intrigued--not sure--by the Fredric character played by actor, singer, and All-American guy, Rex Smith. It wasn’t just his curiously fitted pants that drew my attention but some deep memory about his face. Not a familiarity exactly; I didn’t feel like I recognized him. More an association. So, after the movie, I Googled.
In 1979, Rex Smith released a song called “You Take My Breath Away.” So, of course, I looked that up, too, and was hurtled down an oxygen-rare PTSD rabbit hole. “They” say smell is our most primal sense and your mind can actually recreate smells associated with memories. But music has to be pretty primal, too. “You Take My Breath Away” is about as profound as you’d expect with a title like that, but it kept me awake most of the night, gave me a panic attack, and has been the soundtrack of my life for the last week.
The question: What was going on for me between 1979 & 1983 and why is “You Take My Breath Away” the keyword sequence which triggers my post-traumatic stress?
The answer: I was 10 in 1979 and turned 14 in 1983. In any life, those years have to be the worst.
As a child and as a teen (or tween though we were not tweens then), I was a top 40 radio junkie. I listened to music all the time. I called in and made regular song requests. I made mix tapes off the radio--the kind where everyone had to be really quiet because I had a cassette recorder propped up next to the radio to record.
Even though those tapes are long lost or discarded, I can guess most of what is on them. The Knack, Donna Summer, Blondie, Rikki Lee Jones, ELO, Al Stewart, Firefall. These are the songs I (privately) go to for grounding and a sense of myself. I listen to them on repeat. I turn them up in the car. I sing along because I still know all the words. There it is: the words.
I know all the words and all those words have followed me around for, well, a while. I was not a voracious reader of poetry or Shakespeare or Internet blogs as a kid. I listened to popular music. And I imprinted deep meaning onto those meaningless turns of top 40 phrase. The blanketing cocoon not the breakable chrysalis a child creates in the business of metamorphosing into an adult.
There are words/for the magic of a sunrise/only none of them will do.
Rex croons. And I am comforted by the repetitive weave of syllables set to music, layering thick insulation in my mind. But I have been padding myself for a long time and sometimes I am still unprotected. None of them will do. All of these songs with which I surround myself are terrible. I know that. I have two playlists that I play when no one else is around: Craptastic & The Worst Bad Best. See? I know.
Perhaps the craptastic soundtrack to 1979 muffles a worse bad that I don’t want to hear any more. Or perhaps, less honestly and more poignantly, in the words of alwayssmiling, an inspired reviewer on iTunes, “I remember who I was then.”
And I cozy up to a place where none of this life has happened yet.
