The Little Richard room

A few weeks ago I finished painting the guest bedroom. As usual, when I paint I listen to music. In this case I chose Little Richard’s Greatest Hits. It was energizing to be painting to Tutti Fruitty, Long Tall Sally and Good Golly Miss Molly. I could feel the music ricocheting around my head, then pulsing down my arm into the roller. Rip it up!

Since I’d recently downgraded from the Premium to the Free version of Spotify I had less control over what I was hearing; I soon realized that Free Spotify had put me in a continuous loop–Little Richard sang his greatest hits over and over and over. And since I was in the middle of painting I had no choice but to let him keep looping. So I was serenaded by Little Richard’s wild energy for the entire day. A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam-boom!

Even now, long after the paint has dried and the drop cloths are folded up, I hear Little Richard whenever I walk into the bedroom. In fact, merely thinking about that bedroom causes him to pop into my head. For me, the room and Little Richard are inextricably linked. Possibly forever. If she walks by, the men folks get engrossed; If she winks an eye, the bread slice turn to toast.

This makes me realize how often places and events are tagged with a particular memory. “Honey, they’re playing our song,” rings true for so many people. In that case, a certain piece of music powerfully evokes a shared memory, binding two people together. Hopefully the triggering song occurred while the couple was experiencing something more romantic than painting the guest bedroom. I got the heebie-jeebies ’cause I love you so!

And of course smells activate memories particularly strongly. My first girlfriend lived in a house surrounded by lilacs. For years, whenever I became aware of the scent of lilacs I thought of her. (But now, long after I’ve moved on, lilacs smell sickeningly sweet.) In nursing school, my wife Annie favored patchouli fragrance. To this day, her classmate and good friend still calls her “Patchouli”. I associate a particular smell I can’t describe with my Pittsburgh grandmother. It was probably some sort of soap or lotion; she was certainly too just folks to use perfume. Sometimes I encounter that smell and, probably without consciously appreciating the prompt, I think of her. Tutti Frutti, oh Rooty!

Such associations elicit not only memories, but feelings. For example, there’s the “sauce béarnaise syndrome” (you can Google it). When Annie and I were first courting, we had a very romantic dinner in a little riverside restaurant in White Salmon, Washington. It would have been a great setting for establishing “our song,” but unfortunately no music was playing. The meal prominently featured a big bowl of sautéed mushrooms, which were delicious. But on the drive back to Portland we both got violently ill—we had to pull over and leaned out of our respective car doors to offer our meals to the road. Needless to say, we avoided mushrooms for years. Good golly, Miss Molly!

In my freshman year of high school, I took dancing lessons. As I discussed in a previous post, one evening as my father drove me to class, we listened on the radio to reports about the rapidly escalating Cuban missile crisis. President Kennedy threatened to bomb Russian ships carrying nuclear weapons as they made their way to Cuba. The commentator said that war was increasingly likely, and if it happened it could very well involve nukes. While doing the fox trot we were fully prepared to look out the window and see a blindingly bright flash. Not surprisingly, since then I’ve never really enjoyed dancing. Ain’t never no time for romance; They only wanna dance.

I suspect that quite often how we feel about a place, or a person, or even an idea is informed by a past experience that we subliminally associate with it. For example, say I’m at a crowded party talking to someone I’ve just met. Then a guy bumps into me and spills red wine over my shirt. I may develop a lasting negative opinion of the person I was talking with, even though they had nothing to do with the unpleasant spillage. And if the first time I visit a particular city the weather is bright and sunny and I have a great dinner, I may retain a very favorable view of the place, even if I don’t consciously connect it to my positive experiences there. In other words, our impressions and feelings may be influenced by things as random as being stuck in a Little Richard loop while painting the bedroom. How different I might feel about that bedroom if I’d instead been listening to a Bach cello sonata! Oh, big conniver, nothing but a jiver I done got hip to your jive!

When we’re aware of unexpectedly strong feelings about something, it might be interesting to ask where those feelings came from. In some cases we might be able to make a connection and identify a particular trigger. Slippin’ and a-slidin’, peepin’ and a-hidin’, Won’t be your fool no more—OW!