Down the Rabbit Hole

Is it me - or do we seem to get more easily distracted these days?

I was giving myself five minutes to scroll Facebook before tackling my to-do list. I saw an old friend’s cute hairstyle and wanted to make a comment. Done. So then, because I had a few more minutes on my self-imposed timer, I continued to scroll.

The next thing in my feed was a video of a guy on the street with a guitar who started to sing a song. People gathered around and some were singing along with him. But then his speaker went out. As he bent down to try to fix it, the crowd continued singing. It was pretty great!

I’d heard the song before, but I couldn’t place the title or the artist.

Before I even finished watching the video, I Googled some of the lyrics. I wanted to add the song to one of my playlists.

This, as you can guess, is when I first started down the rabbit hole.

Once I had Title and Artist in hand (metaphorically speaking), I accessed my music library.

Neither the song nor the artist popped up, which was curious as I believe I had it in my library.

So I downloaded it (again) and added it to a specific playlist. 

Meanwhile, the song from the artist himself continued to play on my phone, which brought me to tears with a memory…that I now have to share with you.

The song was Perfect by Ed Sheeran. It sounds like one of those first wedding dance kind of songs. All sweet and loving.

And then I remembered when I first heard it.

Vince and I were flying back from Maui in January, 2018. It is one L-O-N-G flippin’ flight and we had several babies and small children who also thought it was one L-O-N-G flippin’ flight. Their response? Crying, whining and fussing.

Vince, who thankfully restrained himself from crying, whining and fussing, was nevertheless getting a little stressed.

He vowed then and there that as soon as the plane touched down in Columbus, he was making tracks to the nearest Best Buy to purchase some noise cancelling head phones.

(Which he did, by the way.)

I, on the other hand, am a voracious reader and can happily tear through a novel from start to finish on a long flight. I can ignore chatter, crying and even the flight attendant’s query as to what beverage I might like to drink. 

But Vince? Not so much. I think he’d already watched a movie, flipped through the Skymall magazine and was now restless to find something else to keep him distracted from the whining, crying and fussing.

So I handed him my phone and earbuds and told him to listen to some music.

He seemed content, but after I’d gone through several more chapters of my book, he suddenly reached over, grabbed my hand, kissed it and held on tightly.

That was curious. As far as I knew, he wasn’t an anxious flyer and we didn’t have any turbulence making the plane rock and roll at that particular moment, so I wasn’t sure what was happening. I looked over at him, and he had a tear making a track down his cheek.

(Truthfully, he’d hate that I’m telling you this as he wanted to be thought of as Mr. Manly…so, uh, “sorry, honey…”)

But, anyway, I leaned over and asked him what was wrong.

He pulled out one of the earbuds. “Nothing,” he said. “I was just listening to a song that reminded me of you.”  And then he kissed me and told me how much he loved me.

He started to put the earbud back in his ear as if to go back to what he had been doing and I was like, “Uh, no way mister! You now have to tell me what prompted that little display!”

So he put the earbud in my ear and pressed Play.

And, yes, it was Perfect by Ed Sheeran.

I didn’t even know I had a playlist by Ed Sheeran in my music library.

Sometime after that, I did listen to Ed Sheeran. He has a great voice and some good songs, but they’re not the kind of songs I tend to put on the sound system to get myself motivated to exercise or clean the house. So it’s not like I play this kind of music on a regular basis.

But it’s a sweet memory that of course brought me to tears. Because now it’s a bittersweet memory. But it’s one of those memories that I’m so grateful to have.

There are so many times in our lives where we hear a song that makes us cry and think of someone special. Or we catch a fleeting glimpse of a stranger who reminds us of a long-lost friend. Or we laugh over a memory that we know we should share with a friend who could also use a laugh.

But we don’t because we’re busy. Or we’re distracted. Or we think our friend, who hasn’t heard from us in months or years, would think it really weird that we’re suddenly reaching out to them.

So we don’t make that connection.

But I’ve decided that when I see or hear something – and it reminds me of someone – I’m going to make an effort to connect with that person.

Because if Vince had put the earbud back in his ear and hadn’t shared with me that song, I never would have known the rest of the story. And I don’t have him here anymore – so these memories are the things I cherish.

By the way, I went back to Facebook because I thought I should watch the rest of that video. Did the entertainer ever fix his speaker? Did the crowd sing the song in its entirety? What did he do? Stop fiddling with the speaker and sing, too, since he was the one who started it?

And, most importantly, did people toss some coins in his guitar case – or did he have to pay all of them for doing the singing?

Yeah, no. That’s not really the most important thing.

Anyway, I spent another 20 minutes scrolling trying to find that same video.

No dice.

This means that my “5 minute” allowance to scroll Facebook has morphed into an hour and a half downloading a song, writing a blog about it and searching Facebook for something specific, which I never did find.

Sigh.

At any rate, I hope I haven’t distracted you too much. Maybe reading this blog is in your “5 minute” scrolling allowance?

Either way, I am thankful that you’re reading it. It’s a memory I’m happy to share.