A Lifelong Connection to Words

I took a few weeks off to vacation, but I am back!

I just finished reading All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir. It is an awesome book that focuses on the "rage" various characters had to deal with in their lifetimes and how they either managed to live with it or overcome it. What intrigued me the most with this book was that Tahir used different songs to weave in through her story. A few weeks ago I read the Slammed series by Colleen Hoover. She was inspired by the Avett Brothers' music to "become who she was intended to be." She quoted lyrics from some of their songs as she told her story of two young lovers who had to deal with difficult situations at a young age. Poetry is intertwined in her series and that was pretty amazing in and of itself!

So why bring this up? Last night I was in a writing session with my friend, Jen Vincent, from Story Exploratory, and we had this exercise where we listed things we either did or were into when we were 10 years old, things we are into now, and what we hope to be doing 10 years from now. I put a lot of thought into what I was doing when I was 10 years old. When I was 10, I loved reading Nancy Drew books, listening to music, hanging out with my cousins, and most especially reading the Song Hits and Tiger Beat magazines. I rewound through memories to the time I would go grocery shopping with my parents, and I would get to purchase this magazine that contained lyrics to many popular songs of the day. I don't recall how much I paid for said magazine, but I felt rich because I had all these words in my hands! I looked forward to the 45 minute drive home from the store so that I could devour the first read through the different songs. I enjoyed analyzing and interpreting the lyrics. I loved "lifting a line" to use in a letter to a pen pal or for a diary entry. I suppose it was the precursor to "exploring my groove" like we have done in writing group. Exploring this memory allowed me to see that I have always been drawn to language and the way words can communicate thoughts and ideas. I stand firm on the belief that words have always been important to me... not just the ones written by others, but my own as well. If we haven't met yet, my name is Theodora (Lolly), and I am a writer.

A side note: my friend, Monica, recently posted that she and her husband were out at a venue listening to Toby Beau, and somewhere in my brain something was activated because the name sounded so familiar. I did a quick search and its result was that this was a band from Texas with a hit called "My Angel Baby" released in 1978—when I was 10 years old! As I listened to the song, the words just tumbled out of my mouth. What a wonderful experience to connect words to music, to feelings, to a specific time and place.