christinamguerrero.com ~ the official site ~
FOR CALEB:
THE MUSIC VIDEOS OF MY LIFE ON EARTH
Copyright 2018 Christina M. Guerrero
DEDICATION
For Caleb, always.
STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Downloading music.
ABOUT THE DRAFTS
Draft One: Slightly garbled.
Draft Two: Less garbled.
Draft Three: Getting there.
I went to download “I Knew I Loved You” by Savage Garden.
Savage Garden: a name so appropriate for my time with Caleb. A garden is usually beautiful and colorful and peaceful. Savage is about violence and heartache and pain: death and separation.
I found live performances, and was moved by the craft of the singers, composers, performers, and band.
Then I went to download that song.
Did all the necessary things.
Got aggravated at the 10,137 steps to get the song.
Then got comfortable, and hoped to listen to it before I had to get on to other things.
I pressed “Play” and realized a second before touching the smart-phone screen, that the song title was “Truly, Madly, Deeply” -- another of the group’s songs.
Ugh.
I sat there for a bit, wondering. How did I make this mistake?
Then I remembered a day from approximately 2009 to 2010 ....
I was sitting in my car, behind a Whole Foods store, about to get out. The radio was on. I was punching buttons, when “Truly Madly Deeply” appeared.
With interest, I listened to it.
And began crying. I don’t know why.
The crying turned to weeping. I could not figure out what sadness I could possibly associate with this song.
I tried to sing along with the song without crying, but it was impossible. Something hurt.
I continued to listen to the song, then got out of the car, and went about my business.
Now, as I write this, I wonder: Perhaps I was remembering the future. Perhaps a bunch of timelines suddenly crossed. Perhaps I could hear and feel my anguish as I listened to the song over and over many years later.
As I looked at the song on my phone, I remembered all that.
Then I sighed, went through the 135,999 steps to get the other song ... “I Knew I Loved You” ... and made sure I got that one, and not something else.
Then I got ready to listen.
Again.
And decided to listen to “Truly, Madly, Deeply” first, anyway.
As I listened to “Truly, Madly, Deeply” I imagined being long-gone from Earth, and looking back on my life there, moving away in some kind of spaceship, on to another destiny in another universe, with videos of parts of my life on DVD or something like that, with one of the videos devoted to Caleb with this song as the background music.
Why a spaceship; why traveling through time and space; why any of that? It's just what manifested itself. The music inspired it.
In the spaceship, I saw myself in the video, walking along a beach, wearing a hoodie and jeans, and looking up and seeing a tall figure moving toward me.
He was blurry at first, then clear, and then we both smiled ... and reached for each other.
We were on a mountain, looking around, hugging and shouting with glee.
We were on the beach again, wearing bathing suits, splashing, having fun, hugging, spinning with happiness.
Close-up on our happy faces.
Holding hands, walking into the water, and admiring the ocean.
Back on the mountain, feeling the sun on our faces.
Lying on a towel, admiring the sky near the beach.
Laughing, and having fun.
As the song wound down, I saw myself -- on the spaceship -- putting this DVD or whatever away.
And then pausing a moment before accessing the next video/background music.
This song: “I Knew I Loved You” would cover a longer period of time.
I would be a child, going about my day, when the camera would catch a bit of surprise on my face: the day I knew who Caleb would be, what he would look like, when we would meet.
And then flash-forward through both of our lives: from childhood through adulthood.
And the days leading up to our first look.
When I first saw him, I felt intrigued, and comfortable, and satisfied; as if I had seen him somewhere before. Of course I had -- many years prior to meeting him.
The video would show us getting to know each other, including that day when I first saw him smiling.
The song could end there ... when I saw that smile, and when he caught me smiling in return. His face was the face in my soul. He saw that on my face.
Like the song says, “I think I dreamed you into life ... I have been waiting all my life.”
On that spaceship, I would smile at that, thinking about that wonderful moment, not too long after we met, when we were standing on the mountain.
There would be other things to do, and places to go, and other destinies. Maybe. I don't know for sure; just guessing
But before that, I would then reach for Caleb, who would be teaching me how to fly the spaceship. (Again, why? It was the music; it gave me the vision).
And then the video would slowly fade to black, with a heart shape in the middle, focusing on our linked hands.
R.I.P. Caleb.
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