The Soundtrack: Seasons of My Life

Dear Listener,

Music has truly played an integral part in my life, as I am certain it has for you as well, and I am honored to compile this soundtrack for you. These songs are the most prominent in expressing an accurate representation of who I am and how life was for me during the times I have recounted, as well as how it all played out. Of course, this soundtrack cannot include all of the tracks in my life, but rather, the greatest hits version. They are not in chronological order of how it happened necessarily; they were listed randomly. Putting this together has allowed me to reflect on the seasons of my life, and regard how deeply and richly I have lived. It will be a keepsake to remind me of where I have been, and I will continue to add to it. Enjoy!

Track 1: Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head- B.J. Thomas

This song was originally written for the motion picture Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was released in October of 1969 as a 7” single and was recorded by B.J. Thomas. This was literally the very first song I remember hearing on the radio as a very young girl. Even as a child, I could feel there was a melancholy aspect to this song, but there was such optimism he was not going to be defeated by life’s obstacles. To say I identified with it because it was the first song I remember hearing would be a lie. By the time I recall hearing it, I had already lived in California and moved to Miami. My mother was institutionalized after she took my infant brother and tried to leave the country and my father then left and went who knows where. Although he did come to visit, he was often sullen and depressed or angry. It was Grandma who saved me from the raindrops B.J. Thomas sang about. She would scrape together enough money from her small pension and take us (my brother and me) on the city bus to go on adventures. My best childhood memories were sitting on that city bus, excitedly looking for the revolving shark that swam around a pole on Rickenbacker Causeway which was the advertisement for Miami Seaquarium. My grandmother nurtured my love of wildlife and animals in general. If not for those trips to Seaquarium and Crandon Park Zoo, I might not have turned out to be the person I am today. Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head will forever bring to mind those bus rides to adventure when I was just a girl. Yes, parts of my life seemed to have perpetual rain, but, just like the song says I knew “The blues they send to meet me won’t defeat me...”

Track 2: I’m in You- Peter Frampton

“I’m in You” was a single from the album by the same name, written and recorded by British rocker Peter Frampton. Release date: 1977. I was 10 years old when I first heard of Peter Frampton. I had been a fan of folksy type of music the likes of John Denver up until then. I remember the first time I got a good look at Peter on a TV interview, something clicked. And clicked hard. I don’t know why, but it did. I must have watched Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely-Hearts Club with Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees a hundred times if I watched it once. When he came out with this song, “I’m in You”, I was convinced he had to be my future husband. Of course, that notion was short-lived because it wasn’t long before I was interested in boys in general. I had a particularly difficult heartache after my parents refused to allow me to date a boy who was 17 (I was 14). I remember getting on my knees to pray before bed the night of the blow-up. I was crying and was having a difficult time focusing on my prayers. Suddenly, I just started praying out loud, and to my surprise, I prayed the most unusual prayer. I asked for God to “let me meet the one who was just like me.” Now, that prayer was not my own words. I would never have asked for that by myself. As I was praying it, I knew it was divinely guided. I all but forgot about it for almost two decades. Fast forward to the mid-’90s. My brother and I were helping a friend move into a mobile home park. I can’t remember why, but for some reason, we had to have assistance from the park’s repair guy. When the guy showed up, I took one look at him, and I was transfixed. It was like I was looking at a male version of myself. And yes, he did actually favor Peter Frampton, both in appearance and mannerisms. We both kinda froze, like time had stood still. I knew he was “the one”. Of course, YouTube was not a thing yet, so there was no looking up videos of Peter Frampton back then, but I remembered the Sergeant Pepper version of Peter Frampton, and I had no doubt that I had somehow foreseen meeting the future love of my life when I was just 10 years old and prayed for him one teary-eyed evening when I was 14. But that is another story....

Track 3: Keep the Faith- Jon Bon Jovi

Keep the Faith was written and recorded by the pop/rock band Bon Jovi, from the album Keep the Faith, released in 1992. Anyone who knows me well also knows my brother Philip. He is four years my junior, although at times infinitely wiser. After my father married my stepmother when I was seven, life got especially tough for Philip and me. Where we had love and acceptance from our grandmother, we now had a cold, awkward, dysfunctional Brady Bunch type of family we were thrown into suddenly. We had stepsisters, a stepmother, and a father neither of us really knew well at all because he hadn’t been around much. We weren’t even allowed to see our grandmother much. Well, this arrangement lasted throughout my school years. We moved to California in 1977, and finished school, at least, I did. My father had a serious stroke in my last year of high school, and my stepmother decided to move back to Florida where she had the support of her family. I elected to stay in California where my friends were, and freedom. My brother had to move to Florida, but in 1985, when he was 15 years old, he ran away from home, and, aided by my grandmother, came back to California. We had so many hard times, knockdown fights, and many, many conversations about life. Because my parents were so incredibly strict, and would never allow my brother (or me) self-expression without extreme criticism, my brother grew his hair out long and, he actually looked like he could be Jon Bon Jovi’s doppelganger, so much so that at one point my brother started to wonder if perhaps he had been adopted. Girls would scream and beg him for autographs. It was crazy! Our lives were a whirlwind of reckless activity, without direction. We were living a wild life, yes, but we weren’t doing anything really bad. Just youths figuring out what the world was about and wondering where we fit in. “Keep the Faith” really reminds me of my brother and how he played such a monumental part of my life then, and still today. The lyrics especially represent how we dealt with our parents, who were pretty much not a part of our lives any longer, and how destructive anger can be in our lives. My brother actually took me to see Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet tour in Irvine, CA, in 1987 for an early birthday present. I cannot hear a Bon Jovi song today without thinking of my brother and those crazy days of the 1980s.

Track 4: Changes – Tesla (The Band)

Have you ever had that “one best summer of your entire life?” As many summers as I can count that were truly amazing, with countless classic rock concerts, including partying with the bands at times, summers spent almost entirely on the beach in So Cal, and more, there is still one particular summer that stands out above the others…and it was centered around a very special guy and a massive neighborhood water fight that happened during a thunderstorm.

The year was 1990. Everyone was in love with Julia Roberts, or Richard Gere as Pretty Woman hits the big screen, Sinead O’ Connor’s song “Nothing Compares 2 U” hit #1 on the pop hit charts in April, and my life had gone through the biggest upheaval possible, marking the most change I had had since leaving Florida when I was 11years old. The song “Changes” by the band Tesla was the perfect theme song for this whirlwind time.

I had just come back to Florida because my grandmother was ill. We weren’t sure if she was going to pull through (she did and was fine for 12 years after this), so I came back to help out and be there just in case. I was twenty-two years old, and after coming to Wilmington, Florida, I was in shell shock. I had been living in California for thirteen years, and, back in Florida, the closest beach was literally an hour and a half away, which I found amazing since I was from Miami and was used to having a coastline close by. I didn’t know Florida had so much “country” to it. My brother and I were living at Grandma’s apartment while she was in rehab. I met her neighbors there, some of whom I am still friends with to this day. I also met a friend of my brother’s, Robbie.

Robbie and I became friends pretty quickly, and because I was a few years older and he was still in high school, it was kind of an unspoken thing that we would stay “just friends”…at least as far as the rest of the world was concerned. We palled around that whole summer. He had mentioned he was supposed to enlist in the service in the fall, and I was afraid he was going to do just that..and leave. We were about as poor as we could be, and although I had gotten a part-time job at a local grocery store, it wasn’t enough to feed us let alone live a normal life with. Still, we had the best time watching heat lightning in the backyard, going to the neighbor’s to see what was going on, and just being goofy. Back then Florida was in a normal weather pattern and you could just about set your watch by the afternoon thunderstorms. One such evening Robbie and I were drinking tea outside on the porch and got to being goofy. One of us started flicking ice tea at the other, and before we knew it, it was ON! Both of our cups got emptied. Then our neighbor got in on it and poured water on both of us, as the spectacle began to draw a crowd of onlookers. Then the rain came. Complete with thunder and large displays of lightning spanning the sky like great veins of power reaching down to ignite with our energy. We were electric! Everyone in the whole apartment complex got in on the fun, except for Ole’ lady Hutchins, who was yelling “You crazy kids!! You’re all going to be electrocuted and die!” We laughed and continued to throw water on each other by the pint or liter, never mind we were getting drenched to the bone because we were playing water tag in the pouring rain. By this time Robbie and I had begun to tag team everyone else, as they also began to pair up. The early evening had become night and all at once, it seemed Robbie and I were the only ones left out in the rain. Then he looked at me some sort of way, pulled me down in the grass in the pouring rain, and he kissed me, right there in the open, for anyone to see who happened to be looking out the window.

Unfortunately, our fun was short-lived. The following month, July, Robbie’s mother made him leave Florida so he could go live with his dad. I suspected it might have had to do with me, and I know he tried to talk her into letting him stay, but I know she held something over his head, and ultimately, he got on a plane and flew out of my life, never to be seen again. Although the whole entire relationship from the day we met to the day he boarded the plane was a total of four months, the memories we made were strong enough to last a lifetime. Sometimes when we have an evening thunderstorm I can still hear our laughter in the wind and rain as thunder booms and lightning cracks open the sky.

Track 5: Dog and Butterfly- Heart

“Dog and Butterfly” was released in 1979 as a 7” single, with Mistral Wind on the B-side. It was recorded by Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart. This song makes it into my soundtrack because it has a lingering effect on my life in general. It especially represents a certain dog I had who was half Rhodesian Ridgeback and half Pit Bull Terrier. This dog, Chance, was truly more like a sister to me than an actual dog. I know that sounds very strange but true. I didn’t really want a dog when she came into my life as I was expecting my daughter to be born at any time. I thought it would complicate things as I felt ill-prepared for a daughter from a relationship that was never right from the get go, let alone bringing a puppy into the mix. Well, she followed me everywhere I went, forsaking every other person around, my roommate, and any guest we had over. She even followed me into the shower..crazy puppy! So, I conceded to keep her after my roommate convinced me she had come into my life for a reason. That dog was the most frustrating, hard-headed, pain in the derriere dog there ever was. I had dog trainers tell me she was hopeless, and that they would never have a dog like her. But she was also the most amazing dog there was; Nanny dog to my daughter when she was very young and then saving my daughter’s life, literally, when she was a toddler, fighting off a pack of six dogs that were larger than she was once. She would have a long chapter in any memoir I write dedicated to her shenanigans and sheer love of life.

The song Dog and Butterfly depicts a dog who is innocently trying to catch a butterfly fluttering just out of her reach. Ann Wilson wrote the song by watching this scene out her bedroom window one sunny afternoon. The dog in the song was her dog. As she watched this scene, she couldn’t help but see the symbolism in it. Ann felt that life was like that. We chase impossible goals, but we keep trying, and, like her dog, whose “spirit is undaunted” keep laughing as we keep reaching. My dog Chance taught me the same thing. I guess all dogs do silly, goofy antics that entertain us, but sometimes, if we really pay attention, we can learn from them. I used to sing this song to my daughter at bedtime and she would ask if the song was about “Nance” (Chance). And we would laugh at her as she lay next to the bed while I sang Dog and Butterfly.

Chance lived to be a ripe old age of 17, and was older than, and outlived both of the other two dogs we eventually acquired. She was in my daughter’s life from the day she was born and passed away when my daughter was 17. She was there when I met my love, Gregg, and when I lost him too. She licked away many tears from my face; tears of joy, and of bitter pain. She will forever be the sister I never had.

Track 6: Silver Springs- Fleetwood Mac

“Silver Springs” is a single written and recorded by Fleetwood Mac in 1977, with a live version in 1997, the latter was from the album The Dance. I remember where I was the first time I heard this song on the radio. It was late October in 1998 and I was shopping in a now-defunct craft store in Ocala, Florida for some paper leaves and flowers for my daughter’s Halloween costume. She wanted to be a fairy, so I bought her white tights, a white sweatshirt, and some paper autumn leaves and vines. We hot glued the flowers and leaves on her clothes, which I cut to look fringed like a fairy costume. When I heard the song in the store, I literally froze and listened to it. So haunting and melancholy, obviously about a relationship gone sour and the regrets that go with it. In my own reckoning, I assumed it had to do with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. I eventually found I was correct about that. The song struck me because of the title, for one thing. Silver Springs was a park in Ocala, Florida that, although still exists today, is not the way it was at the time of this song. It was literally the first amusement attraction in Florida and sported a modest wildlife park. I had just been there for my first visit a few months before I heard the song, and had high hopes of one day working there one day. My love, Gregg, loved reptiles and we would often talk about going to a zoo school at the Marion Teaching Zoo that was, at that time, located in Belleview, Florida, and offered a new program for prospective zookeepers so we could both work at Silver Springs together. We never did get to go to the zoo school, and we never got to work at Silver Springs together. (Later, after Gregg’s passing I made it my life’s goal to work there, and I did, working with reptiles and birds of prey for several years.)

In the fall of 1998, a group of us put together an amazing haunted hayride and a haunted house for the kids in the area. It was a concerted effort of all of the people in our small mobile home community, we all bonded. Just one big, happy family we were. So, after the Halloween fun, we looked forward to Thanksgiving. Someone mentioned the Halloween Gang, as we all affectionately referred to each other, should all get together for a Thanksgiving Day feast. And that is exactly what we did! We pooled our picnic tables, and everyone brought a dish. I cooked the turkey and stuffing and made a pumpkin pie, and everyone brought dishes and drinks. It was the single most amazing Thanksgiving I have ever had! I couldn’t help but feel the camaraderie and friendship that must have been akin, to some degree, to the very first Thanksgiving feast. My daughter and I still talk about it today. The song Silver Springs always brings to mind that most amazing Fall season, and the people who made it extra special.

Track 7: Fell on Black Days- Soundgarden

“Fell on Black Days” was recorded by Soundgarden and released in 1994. The lead singer Chris Cornell, had been struggling with depression for the majority of his life and this very dark song exemplifies that struggle. Sadly, he ended his life in 2017 in a hanging suicide.

Most people have heard of the phrase “Dark Night of the Soul”, which universally symbolizes a particularly difficult, ominous time of life that some people feel they might not ever survive. This song was prominent for me in the darkest season of my life, my personal “Dark Night of the Soul.”

My love, Gregg, had taken his life at the end of a rope after an extended time apart. He had chosen to put distance between us for some unknown reason, I couldn’t understand. We had been separated for almost two years when he suddenly showed up at my house to visit on his way to visit another friend who had had a bad motorcycle accident. I thought after that visit that he was going to find his way back to me, but within three weeks from that day, he killed himself. I was riddled with guilt, although I couldn’t have known about it, or done anything to prevent it anyway. Later I was told the reason for his visit that day was to tell me ‘goodbye’ because he had been planning his demise since he found the news about his tumors.

Eventually, I found out that he had been diagnosed with inoperable brain tumors and was given only two years to live. Only a select few knew, and he kept it that way; and he especially kept it from me. A mutual friend finally sought me out after Gregg’s death and told me that he had found out about Gregg having inoperable brain tumors. Suddenly, many of the unanswered questions were resolved, but it took a full year or better after his death for any of that to come to light. During the time prior to that disclosure, I had fallen on my own very dark days, with a depression that I couldn’t find my way out of by myself. If not for a friend who came to my house every morning to literally pull me out of bed, my dogs, and my daughter, I might have remained in my Dark Night of the Soul for many more years.

Track 8: Roll with the Changes- REO Speedwagon

“Roll with the Changes” comes from the album You Can Tune a Piano but You Can’t Tuna Fish, which was recorded by one of my all-time favorite bands, REO Speedwagon. It was released in 1978. This song comes to mind when I think of getting my job (FINALLY) with Silver Springs Nature’s Theme Park in 2009, six years after Gregg passed away, and ten years after we started making plans to get the proper qualifications to work there. The song is pertinent to that whole-time frame because of the lyrics that say, “I knew it had to happen, felt the tables turnin’, got me through my darkest hour.” To deepen the significance of the song to my time working at Silver Springs, it happened that REO Speedwagon played there in 2012. (They had a concert series every year where big-name bands and performing artists would play at “The Mansion”) I had to work that day but was resolved to sneak away and enjoy the last part of the concert...when I knew they would be performing my favorites. I saved my lunch break and took it from 4 pm, until 5. I knew that would be really pushing it for time since I had several parrots I had to collect from the perches throughout the park before going home at 5:30 pm. Well, invariably, I lost all track of time as I was enjoying all of my favorites they saved until the last part of the show. When I did finally leave, after hearing my two favorite REO songs, Roll With the Changes and Riding the Storm Out, I “put it in gear” in preparation for collecting all of my parrots. I figured I was going to get reprimanded by my manager because I was very late coming back from my lunch. But to my surprise, two of my coworkers from a different department in wildlife took it upon themselves to bring in my birds! I was so thankful! They knew I had cut out to watch the concert and were doing me a favor. I shall never forget them for that or my REO concert that day. Incidentally, my job at Silver Springs was not only a fulfillment of my plans to work there, but Gregg’s as well since I also worked with the alligators in the alligator program, which is what Gregg had always wanted to do.

Track 9: Landslide- Fleetwood Mac

“Landslide” was recorded by Fleetwood Mac, released originally in 1975 from the album titled Fleetwood Mac, but the live version that I am most fond of was released in 1997 on the reunion album The Dance. This song carries a completeness that embodies the last 20 years of my life in a broad way. It is a reflective song where singer/writer Stevie Nicks is considering how fragile we all are when confronted with the rigors of life, and how fleeting our time here is. Are we not fearful in the face of inevitable changes and having to be introspective and honest in looking at ourselves and our ability to let go of past heartaches? How can we embrace all that life was meant to be when we put so much of ourselves into our children, our family, and our vocation? And what happens when we lose them? Where do we find the courage to continue? These are the hard questions about life that sooner or later, we all must ask ourselves.

My life is a reflection of the same questions I find myself asking. I lost the two loves I had in life, and now that my daughter is grown, I find myself in a season of change and introspection, coupled with my ever-advancing age. How will I meet the demands of my ever-changing life to support change, growth, and loss? “Can the child within my heart rise above?... I don’t know…”

In these final words, I would like to thank you, the listener, for listening to The Soundtrack of My Life, and I hope you enjoyed reading the reflections that went into this compilation as much as I enjoyed documenting them. In compiling this soundtrack, I was able to revisit the most meaningful events of my life thus far. I laughed, I cried, and I had a good long look in the mirror. Ultimately, none of us escapes life. But, if we are brave, if we will put our whole entire being into living it…we might just find that we too can ”climb a mountain and turn (ourselves) around.”

In the words of Stevie Nicks….

“Climbed a mountain and I turned around.

Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?

Can I handle the seasons of my life? Oh, oh I don’t know…

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills, maybe, the landslide will bring you down.....”