memory of falling in love

Some memories are trapped in music. When I listen to a song, I can tap into a memory. Some music is trapped inside a memory. When I go back to 1992 all I can remember is walking to the record store and picking up this EP by a lesser known band, and the title is SAP and the band is Alice In Chains. And the Seattle scene and the Olympia scene captured me in the heart of the country, the midwest, halfway between where I grew up and where I would end up, California. And the colors of my emotions bled out from my headphones on down, every day walking around the flats of north shore Chicago, like the first wash of flannels you wore, coming out in the rinse. I was falling in love maybe for the first time, by 1993. I knew I was falling in love because we were already talking about the first time we met, a couple days after we met. We met at a party near the university. We spotted one another and she wanted to talk to me, and I wanted to talk to her. We talked for a while and the conversation was lively. Captivating. Still it almost did not happen. You know how you can see someone and they can fascinate you, and if you do not get their digits you risk never seeing that person again? And sometimes never will? Fortunately she wrote her number on my arm. I called her the next day, but already I was falling. The soundtrack was Nirvana and Common Sense and Enya. There would be implicit trust. No formal dates necessary. We just began to kick it every day, on the sofa, in the coffeehouses, with or without friends. I got to know her family and she, mine. We were together for a couple of wonderful years. I didn't make for a very good companion in the end. I broke a lot of trust. I couldn't really trust myself, those days. We wore out that tape, scratched those records. Sade and Seal and Smashing Pumpkins. The trees shook off the dead leaves, but my feelings did not come out in the rinse. You know you were in love, when life is unbearable without them. For months maybe years. Everything reminds you of them, and heartache isn't just an oversampled word. I couldn't believe it was over... just to hear her voice. The color just would not wash off. I wore them like a bruise. I was a waitress, and could barely raise a smile on the job. I could not concentrate, kept daydreaming away. I feel so lucky to have fallen in and out of love.