Soundtrack

Different times of my life are associated with certain songs. If I hear Counting Crows, I am immediately brought back to the final years of high school: first love, the taste of adult just over the horizon, my boyfriend's ripped jeans that I wore obsessively, drinking hard liquor mixed with sweet sweet drinks, the moodiness and angst, "And I don't understand why I sleep all day and I start to complain that there's no raiiiiin.'

Then, a few years later, I lived in Africa. Certain songs from that time and place bring me right back to the dust and the poverty and the laughter. Kofi Olomide. Black-so-man. 'Birima' by Youssou N'Dour. I hear those musicians and I am sitting in a roadside bar, it is late and the heat has abated, grilled tilapia makes my mouth water, the wide lights under which students study late into the night, the ragged gangs of homeless children, their clothes uniformly brown, wait in the shadows for any food that may be left over.

Recently the soundtrack that accompanies my ramblings has changed. I listen to a lot more children's music now than ever before. Also, to calm myself from living with a crazy two and half year old, I listen to a lot of classical music. Well, relatively a lot. Recently, I spent an evening cleaning the leaves of a plant after trying to deal with an unending tantrum. I didn't even listen to any music.

What will the soundtrack of this time be? Will it be The Wiggles' saccharine version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? Will it be the Pirate Song, a sing-a-long book that my son loves to listen to over and over and over? Or will it be The Beatles 'Hello Goodbye' which my son sings quite well and seems to represent exactly his stage of development: 'You say yes, I say no. You say stop and I say go go go.'