The Cat Came Back

Have you ever been reunited with an old love? Did your heart fill up like it was transported back in time? Mine did. I felt teenaged and deeply in love with the music of Cat Stevens. Seeing him again was a joy I will treasure forever. 

As Cat wrote in one of his earliest songs, "the first cut is the deepest." For me, he made that cut in the summer of my thirteenth year. His music was the gift that came along with the early adolescent horrors of summer camp.  

When he turned his back on music, it felt like he turned his back on me. I grieved the loss like a death. My mom used to call him my friend, and although we had never met, he was, and I missed him dearly.
 
I recently wrote a song called old love. (You can watch my video of it here.) I wrote it while wondering what happens to love when it goes. Cat reminded me of the answer earlier this month, when he returned to Philadelphia after thirty-eight years away.
 
It doesn’t go anywhere! In time, it recedes, but all it takes is a sound, or a scent, or in this case a song, to bring it all rushing back with an intensity that feels like the breaking of time.
 
Whose songs will live in your heart forever?

 
 
(If you leave a comment, please check back. I always respond.) 


 

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