There are some pieces of music that evoke enough emotion that it takes me straight to a memory of my life so fiercely I want to act on it. A lot of people think that I am crazy when I talk like this and my family knows exactly what I mean. I am sure for my Mom it is a constant because if you say certain words she starts singing using those words. Mom has a song for every word in the English language (and some foreign languages) except poinsetta. Dad on the other hand appears to be moved by the quality of the music. He can hear the same piece of music sung by two different groups and one of them will knock his socks off. The way that you know, is that he makes no comments other than, "that's it," or "man" and then just walks off to his bedroom or office or sitting room. Then there is Carter (and his roommate Ben for that matter) who when for no particular reason will burst into a cantata or something random he is learning in choir or something he has already learned a hundred years ago, but likes the effect he has on the people who jump at the loud choral voice.

Me, I don't really sing, except at the meal times when it is the least appropriate and when I am at Sherry's house, Grace reminds me that I am at her house and it is against the rules. Or her brother Cooper gives me that look like RAY-CHEL! Right, no singing at the table, but for some reason, I can't stop myself. If I am in the Huddle House it is really bad. They always have the most singable songs on.

This morning I was on my way to work, and I don't know why this happened the way that it happened. I have a new cd that is the Best of U2 from 1980-1990. It might not be new to the rest of the world, but it was nine bucks at Wallyworld and is one of my all time favorite groups of all time and couldn't resist and ended up with a new cd. It was haphazardly in my cd player in the car. I don't know if it was the music and the sun or the cool air. I don't know if it was gratitude of the way that my day was headed or the comfortability I feel with my life right now. I don't know. I attribute the sudden memory jump to the music. It is the third track on the cd, "With or without you" that caught me off guard. I was immeadiately to that place the first time I heard it. I think I was fifteen or sixteen years old and it was summer at the pool and my good friend Casey was there. He is the one who intoduced me to U2. He was driving me in his car (so it is possible that I was fourteen) and it was on the cd player. I can smell the leather in his car. I think we were on the way to swim practice or a swimmeet or coming back from the Pizza Cafe. I know that if my parents had known that I was riding around with a teenager in a car they would have shot me, but once they found out that it was Casey, they didn't mind so much. Maybe he was taking me home from the pool. I don't know. He was always so nice to me. I loved Casey, but not like a teenage girl has a crush on a teenage boy, but more like he was my friend and he took care of me when I needed it and was just nice to me. I was a pest I am sure because generally when I was that age I was a pest. Lots of the older kids in Avondale were not nice to me, but he was. He taught me how to swim. He taught me how to swear. He taught me about U2 and REM. He taught me when to be quiet and when it was okay to let go. He taught me to be competitive and to keep pushing myself. He taught me how to play corner tag and not get caught and if I did get caught, how to immeadiately catch someone else. Although, he did have a slight advantage that I will never have, he was six-four and could hold his breath longer than any person I had ever met. He would stand on the bottom of the pool and reach up and grab my leg and sink me everytime and I would never know he was there.

I can't imagine being him though. His Dad had Lou Garig's disease (spelling) and his oldest brother had AIDS in a time where people were still not sure what AIDS was. He had to stand there and let his Dad die because there was a DNR on him and Casey knew CPR and could have saved him. He didn't speak for about a month after that happened. His brother died when we were life guards together. It was sad and he never brought it up. It was something I read in the paper when I was first learning to read the paper outside of the comics. His younger brother was a holy terror. There were five of them altogether and I think probably Casey might have had a terror streak in him too, he just knew how to get away with it and Jeremy didn't have a clue.

Casey almost never smiled. He almost never spoke either. I remember when he started dating his first real girlfriend. I was so mad. I did not like her. He dated her forever, like they might be married forever. I don't know why I didn't like her other than when she was around he didn't pay attention to me any more. I became the essence of the little sister that he never had. My hands on my hips and my pouted lips with the very idea that he would go off and like some silly girl who couldn't even swim. All she did was lay out. I am sure he must have really liked her.

I loved him though. I don't know where he is or what he is doing. I don't know anything, but I know that my heart is with him when I listen to this music.