I got knocked down memory lane the other night. It was unexpected but not entirely unwelcome. And I didn’t see the tears coming before they fell down my face.

There are stories we take with us all our lives. Sometimes we share them, mostly we don’t. Sometimes those stories have a song. More often than not, that song takes on a life of its own and ends up applying to life as well as to whatever story it was at one time, very early on, attached to.

This is the song that knocked the wind out of me the other night. This probably isn’t your song (though I dare say some of you will understand it), but you know what I’m talking about anyway.

Mystery

“Each time you’d pull down the driveway i wasn’t sure when i would see you again
yours was a twisted blind-sided highway no matter which road you took then
oh you set up your place in my thoughts moved in and made my thinking crowded
now we’re out in the back with the barking dogs my heart the red sun your heart the moon clouded

i could go crazy on a night like tonight when summer’s beginning to give up her fight
and every thought’s a possibility and voices are heard but nothing is seen
why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery

so what is love then is it dictated or chosen
does it sing like the hymns of 1000 years
or is it just pop emotion
and if it ever was here and it left
does it mean it was never true
and to exist it must elude
is that why i think these things of you

but i could go crazy on a night like tonight
when summer’s beginning to give up her fight
and every thought’s a possibility and voices are heard but nothing is seen
why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery

oh but you like the taste of danger it shines like sugar on your lips
and you like to stand in the line of fire just to show you can shoot straight from your hip
there must be a 1000 things you would die for i can hardly think of two
but not everything is better spoken aloud not when i’m talking to you

oh the pirate gets the ship and the girl tonight breaks a bottle to christen her
basking in the exploits of her thief she’s a very good listener
and maybe that’s all that we need is to meet in the middle of impossibility
standing at opposite poles, equal partners in a mystery
we’re standing at opposite poles, equal partners in a mystery.”

–Indigo Girls