May 30, 2005

• I decided to switch to ‘party shuffle’ on iTunes.  It played a series of good songs for awhile.  Up until it reached “Walk On” by U2.  “Ew, it’s the exceedingly commercial band, U2,” I thought as the images of the silhouetted ipod advertisement creatures materialized in my mind.

  
  

   

  
  

  My hand instantly stopped typing to one of the instant messages popped up on the screen and moved toward the mouse.  Being that every single one of my body parts has been programmed to make sudden motions of disgust whenever a horrible song comes on, my hand made the mouse scroll down iTunes to pick out a different song.  An understatedly hip song.  One that makes any of its listeners subconsciously crave drinking very black coffee and write some poem about how much they miss childhood.  One that makes its listeners want to try and discover some interesting, new conversation starter, like “Where do the fish really go after you flush them down the toilet?” only because the song was just so special, so inspiring, that you felt compelled to inspire others with its deep and intriguing randomness.

  
  

   

  
  

  One that is so different, so unique, that it probably sounds identical to every other different song I own.

  
  

   

  
  

  But before my hand has the chance to click on something as unprecedented and original as a song by the Shins, before I have a chance to once again return to that oh-so indie, I-eat–from-the-sweaty-palms–of- the-Garden State-soundtrack type of conformity that I know, secretly love, and forever live by, my hand goes paralyzed.

  
  

   

  
  

  “Walk on,” sings the red and black iPod carrying Bono, “Walk on.”

  
  

   

  
  

  And rather than die of having a song that had in fact been transmitted through radio waves at one point or another contaminate my brain cells and cause me to break out into a fatal seizure, I instead do the unthinkable.  I listen.

  
  

   

  
  

  And all of the sudden I’m graduating from middle school.  I’m only just leaving eighth grade.  I’m wearing that white strapless dress I had been lusting over for the past two weeks.  And I’m sitting with my entire grade in the Papermill Playhouse. In a few minutes, we’re going to be called up, one by one, to walk onto the stage and receive our Completion of Middle School certificates.  “I hope I don’t trip” everyone is thinking as they readjust their rigid loafers, their dangerously high-healed shoes that could easily stab someone to death if aimed in the right direction.  However, before the official graduation begins, a screen rolls down, a projector turns on.  Mr. Oppel has prepared a slide show.

  
  

   

  
  

  An electric guitar sound. And there goes Bono, singing away as images of the past year flash before everyone’s eyes.  Lunch time. Auditorium.  Eighth Grade Dance. That field trip to the place where we all reluctantly witnessed the doughy rolls of Mrs. Beck's body exposed in a skimpy one piece bathing suit.  It is all there, each image changing with every other beat of the song. 

  
  

   

  
  

  As much as I try to fight it, tears begin to swell up in my eyes.  I would have let them go, too, had it not been for the fact that no form of emotion seemed evident in anyone else’s facial expression.  Instead, I merely sit there.  Quietly crying inside, knowing that things are going to change, that everyone in this room would change and grow up and grow old and forget about the intimate details of the day they graduated middle school.  A day that, in the grand scheme of things, is equivalent to the significance of a negligible speck of dust. 

  
  

   

  
  

  In only the course of one year my entire world has flipped and twisted in all sorts of directions.  If I were to write a letter to that eighth grade self of mine, as I stepped off the stage, diploma in hand, half the stuff on it would be incomprehensible.  “You did what?” I would think as I read the letter, “What the hell is going to be wrong with me?” But sometimes I look back, reminisce, and ask myself the same questions.  The truth is, there is always something wrong.  There is always going to be that glitch, that flaw, that tragic flaw that can potentially weigh you down or seize you from moving at all.  

  
  

   

  
  

  But if there wasn’t anything like that, there wouldn’t be any room for improvement.  Everyone would be perfect and no one would change or ask questions because all questions would already be answered and all answers would be solid, logical, forever correct.  Life would be placid.  Life would be pointless.

  
  

   

  
  

  It’s only been a year, and already I’m an entirely different person.  Sure, I talk, act and look the same way. But my values have changed. They’ve twisted into this distorted, mutated version of what I know is reality, mixing it with what I want reality to be. 

  
  

   

  
  

  And as the song “Walk On” by U2 comes to an end, I can’t help but realize how much it doesn’t matter that U2 is mainstream.  I can’t help but remember liking that song when it was played at my graduation, aware of who sung it, but indifferent just the same.  In a way, the artist doesn’t really matter in the end.  What matters is the art the artist makes.

  
  

   

  
  

  Realizing this, my hand came back to life and instinctively began scrolling up and down iTunes.  It went passed all the acceptable songs, too.  The ones I’m usually proud of ‘discovering’, I’m proud of listening to.  The mouse’s arrow stops on Smash Mouth’s “Allstar”.  I double click, instantly transporting myself back to the fourth grade, rollerblading at Villanova skating rink.  And, to be quite honest, I truly don’t give a damn.

  
  

   

  • 7:17 pm
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