Inauguration walk

I have imported many many many songs into my iPod. I am all about the iPod right now. I’m having a friend over tonight to watch the Oscars and I can barely stop fiddling with my iPod long enough to make us some food to eat this evening. I mean … I can’t stop. And yesterday was when the full import of … well … what an iPod actually IS … hit me. I’m not a tech geek. I don’t keep up with that stuff. I still don’t have a DVD player, for God’s sake. And the remote for my VCR doesn’t work, so if I want to rewind to watch a scene again, I have to stand up, walk across the room, hold down Rewind, find my spot and then go back and sit down. This actually doesn’t torment me. It really doesn’t. I do not need to keep up with the every new thing that comes out. I also do not have the money to give a crap about what everybody else has. I just don’t. I’m fine with my VCR. And I can watch DVDs on my laptop if I want to. I’m fine.

But I’ve been walking around with a Walkman for years now. I make mix tapes. I have them in many categories – because you know how it is – mix tapes get stale … and I personally don’t want a Joan Baez song to be in the middle of a mix when I’m on the treadmill. No. So I have the “running mix” – actually I have several of them – to use during workout moments. This is all the hard driving hard rock stuff that keeps me going, pushes me to complete what I’m doing, pushes me to keep up with the beat. Lots of Foo Fighters. Lots of Madonna (great beats – really insistent). B-52s is awesome. Etc. I have a ton of these mix tapes.

And yesterday I inaugurated my iPod and used the “shuffle” feature and … I am just blown away.

I know I’m years behind everybody else, but whatever. I’m at my own pace. Like … okay, here’s the deal: I would never just sit down to listen to Billy Joel’s Songs in the Attic, song by song, all the way through – like I used to. Yes. I love that album. It’s my favorite Billy Joel and it’s the only one I own. Billy lost me when he tried to get socially relevant. Billy. Please stop. BUT. That’s not the point. I haven’t listened to that album in YEARS. If I’m making a mix tape for someone or myself, maybe I’ll pull it out and put one of the songs on … but that’s it. But I imported every song from that album (and – unbelievably – I love EVERY song on that album – I think it’s terrific) … and so now – with the whole shuffle thing – I’m listening to Queens of the Stone Age or The Waterboys and suddenly – on comes “summer, Highland Falls” and I feel this jolt of excitement. It really is like the best radio station ever. I can INTEGRATE all of that music into one long continuous mix. It’s … so damn cool that I am literally beside myself.

I have to go cook some food for my friend. But I can’t … seem … to stop … fiddling … with the … iPod.

So yesterday was my introduction to the shuffle feature. I took everyone’s advice (thank you!!) and tried to pace myself in terms of importing music. I am going slowly. I need to pick and choose the necessary songs off of each album. Not EVERY album is like Songs in the Attic where I like them all. (I guess I could live wihtout hearing “Captain Jack” again – but still – when it’s in this shuffle formation, it’ll pop up once in 10 years – and in THAT way it will be fun to hear it again. Know what I’m sayin’????)

I have 200 songs on the iPod now or something like that. All my Queen, Queens of the Stone Age, Sinead O’Connor, Metallica, U2, the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, the Donnas, Avril Lavigne … uhm who else … well, you know. My faves.

And yesterday was freezing cold. I put on my workout shit, bundled up in a sweatshirt with a big roomy pocket in the front, put a hat on, put the iPod in my pocket (like I was a marsupial of some kind) and headed out for a walk.

The glory of that walk will last for days. I took another one today. I feel like I was shedding my skin or something. First of all: I was in my own personal music video for about 3 hours. Yes, I walked for 3 hours. A power walk too. I can barely move today. I walked along the Hudson north – for miles – then turned around – walked back down the Hudson – for miles – went down into Hoboken – walked along the waterfront there – then back up the hill to my house. I have no idea how many songs I listened to. I was just … BESIDE MYSELF.

It was almost an out of body experience at times. I felt the burn in my legs, my heart rate going up, I felt all that stuff – but I was on another PLANE. I just kept going and going and going. The day was blindingly bright – I walked along Boulevard East – past Alexander Hamilton Park – heh heh – and at that point, there is a sheer dizzying drop down a cliff – down below you can see cars as small as matchbox cars – and then the gleaming blue of the Hudson – with teeny tugboats chugging by – small as toys – and then the city. The city. That beautiful Emerald City across the way. I never get over it. The skyline. The missing part of the skyline. The thick cluster of skyscrapers in midtown, all glimmering blue mirrors … Just breathtaking. But my experience of this walk was not literal – I was all OVER the place in my mind. The cold air, the music, the Empire State Building, the burn in my legs, and then – on a whole other plane, my emotions. What I’m going through. I’m going thru a lot. A lot of my activity is designed to push all that shit back. It’s bothersome, it’s painful, and it’s just easier to read a book and not deal with it. But on the inauguration walk – with the help of this soundtrack – I floated off into that space – I didn’t sit and concentrate on it, or try to ‘work’ on it … I just let it into my heart a little bit. It’s easy to do that when you’re in a music video. Music is all about expressed emotion. It helps us, the listener, to express our emotions. That’s the whole deal. And I need a lot of help to do that. I guess I’m just out of practice.

So yesterday I must have walked 15 miles – just zoning OUT to the best mix of music ever known to man. At times I was in tears. At times I felt compelled to become an air guitarist. I didn’t give a shit. At times I stopped walking, leaned against the wall lining New Jersey and stared at New York – just to catch my breath, and also to catch up with myself.

I’m a little bit lovesick right now and not even really admitting it – and through this Shuffle feature WHICH IS THE BEST INVENTION EVER – I came across the Queen song “Too Much Love will Kill You”. I guess I was never really familiar with that song, as much of a Queen fan as I am. I just … I felt like I had never heard it before. I was charging along into the wind, and it came on – and it was like it sliced through me like an arrow. I need to write about that song in depth. I think I’ll do it over here. I started writing the essay in my head as I walked – trying to figure out what it was, EXACTLY, that was so GETTING me in the listening. It’s the lyrics, sure – they were reflecting what I was feeling perfectly – uhm, that “too much love will kill you” – that’s just how I was feeling – but it’s also just his VOICE. He sings that song as though it is a Shakespearean monologue. It’s a STORY. You get the whole story of what is going on – and his voice – GodDAMNIT, Freddie, you fucking KILL ME.

I could not get enough of that song. I listened to it probably 20 times in a row yesterday on my mammoth walk, because that was how much I needed to hear it. And every time I heard it, two things happened simultaneously: I lifted above the moment – I transcended the everyday banality of the situation – and got straight into the experiential, the sensoral. I was FEELING what I was FEELING. This may sound retarded and like Being a Human Being 101, but it’s hard for me, at times, to really even understand what is going on with me at any given moment. My friend David always laughs at me, like: “But Sheila … you’re so THERE for me … you’re so insightful …” Yup. With my friends I’m awesome. With me? I am usually the last to understand that something is actually going on. Dense as fog. So “Too Much Love Will Kill You” just sliced right into the heart of what is REALLY going on – and so then it was like I had permission to just feel it. Just feel it, Sheila. Be lovesick. Whatever. Go for it. So I was. It was AWESOME. Thanks, Freddie!! I swear, though, I have to write more about that song.

So those were the two things going on – rising up above any petty anxieties or cerebral concerns that I always torment myself with – and also going down INTO the experience. Which is just a way of admitting that it is actually going on. Probably a ton of you won’t know what I’m talking about. That’s cool – my friends will. They get it, they know my struggles … to just BE HERE. In this moment.

Exercise always helped me to do that. Just be in the moment. If you’re on a 10 mile run, you just go moment to moment. At least I do, since I didn’t run competitively. Or – I did run in races, but it was for myself. So running is a good way for me to get out of my own way – stop thinking so much – stop that – and just focus on whatever is going on right now, in the moment. It’s quite a bit like acting, actually. Good actors all have the ability to do that. The job is not called THINK-er, or ANALYZ-er. It’s called ACT-or. When we “act” we are in the moment.

This is a long way of saying I love my iPod. This is why I love my iPod. It’s been the missing piece. I have been resisting my exercise routine because of this whole cerebral issue – I find it a struggle – but now that barrier has been swept away.

Yesterday was the best day I have had in a long long time. I came home after my marathon – my cheeks were BEET RED – I looked healthy to myself. In the mirror. I was IN my face. I could see ME there.

Then I did my cooking for the week – I’m a bulk cooker, haha – all as I was uploading new music – and I felt like I had some kind of huge RELEASE that day. I felt free, like a weight had been lifted, like my eyes were clear.

UPDATE: Oh fuck it, we’ll just order a pizza tonight. I can’t cook right now. I have too much iPod-ing to do!!