Sometimes, when you least expect it life floods you with wonderful, easy feelings. Last night I went to a concert. Oh, that in and of itself was not reason for the easy feelings. No, in fact, the concert made me feel quite old. We were the guests of a young couple who I think took us solely because we were the only people they knew that were old enough to remember the group that were performing. The crowd gathering were old enough to remember when the Beatles first invaded the Ed Sullivan show. But, it was really a wonderful evening, a chance to sort of remember a simpler time.

In the daily grind we frequently are not able to stop and think about all the wonderful events that have changed our lives, imprinted on our memories times and places and great feelings. The band performing was a group from the 70's, The Eagles, and though they did make a come back of sorts when, as they said "Hell Froze Over" they will always be part of my life for the images that flood the brain when you hear songs like Peaceful Easy Feeling or One of These Nights.

They started out with a much more country rock sound, maybe even a bit of that folk rock that was also popular at the time. Their early songs were ones that made me want to stop and maybe even "kick back" for a moment and listen. I found last night that I still remember the words to most of the songs. But I also noticed that the band itself was much older...they were really old...their voices were not quite what they once were they had physically changed and, frankly, I think I would prefer to listen to them on their remastered digital recordings than live. But all that aside...oh the memories.

Beginning with Take it Easy, the first song of theirs that I actually went out and purchased, the seemed to speak to my young sensibilities. They seemed to reflect the time and place in which we were living. Now days words like "It's girl, my lord, in a flat head Ford, slowing down to take a look at me" would at best be cute. I doubt that anyone in the group I was with could tell you what a "flat head Ford" is or was. But for me that evokes a lot of memories of cars, friends, and good times.

When they sang Peaceful Easy Feeling I could feel myself relaxing and breathing slower. It brought back so many reminders of my youth. My wife, though we were not yet married, and I were driving across the country to New Mexico to see her sister. Dad, a pastor, was not keen on the idea of us stopping anywhere along the way so it was one long slog through the desert to Los Alamos from Los Angeles. Peaceful Easy Feeling had to be on its way to or already at number one and we must have heard it 30 times on the drive across the states. We laughed at the line...I want to sleep with you in the desert tonight...if Dad only knew.

I think my friends and I made the Tequila Sunrise the drink of choice for my entire grad school years. We would have competitions to see who could do a better Sunrise. Then there was Take it to the Limit and One of These Nights...both had were players on the stage of my life, perhaps not with the significance of some of their other tunes but I was surprised an being able to pull up images of where I was when I heard the individual songs. Overall the concert was a sort of playbook or play list for my life in the early 70's.

Then along came marriage and kids and the playlist changed but even after our son was born we would sometimes go to a little Italian place called Mione's where on Saturday evenings there was a live band...and on a good night we could hear maybe one or two of the Eagle's songs. There were also songs from Roberta Flack, Fleetwood Mac and others all part of a rich deeper picture of memories.

I'm told that in the old castles and chateaus of Europe the tapestries that hung on the walls were there for two reasons. First they added physical warmth to the cold rooms and cut down on the noise from the hard stone walls but they also served to tell a story. The story of the lord of the manor. They spoke to his conquests in battle or in the hunt or perhaps simply the story of the family history. But it is this tapestry model that gives us the reason for calling our lives a tapestry. But, I think that we can easily see how our tapestry is woven by memories, by friends, by places, by events, and by music. The tapestry of my life has some Eagle's thread. It also has a lot of Paul Simon, some Pete Seger, some Roberta Flack, and some Fleetwood Mac. There are sections colored by Creedence Clearwater, The Who, and even some doses of such desparate singers as Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, a bit more of her daughter Liza and some Frank Sinatra. There are images that are composed of Puccini and Verde as well as some that are made up almost completely of Chopin, Brahms, Holst, and Mozart.

There are sections of my tapestry that are still being drawn in and the texture is found in threads of groups like U2, Coldplay, Radioheads, and the occasional Josh Groban or Il DIvo. I guess what I am trying to say is that the tapestry is richer for the variety. But, equally important is that each of these distinct sets of music bring back specific memories. They can evoke thoughts of specific places, times and events...of people and lives shared.

There are a number of stimuli that can cause these memories to come to the surface I suppose. Scents are often used as subliminal reminders and can even help students remember information on test day. I know the simple fragrence of gardenias brings back a quick, almost instantaneous image of a large granite fireplace with the deepest mantle that I have ever seen...it was in the living room of our first house. The gardenias were a gift from a neighbor to help freshen a house that had been empty and sealed up for months. I knew of a man who spent years trying to find the scent that his wife had worn before she died. He missed her every evening and wanted to have that scent on the pillow beside his on the bed. It turned out it was the fabric softener and not a perfume but imagine the memories that came to the surface every night once he found the source.

So...last night was an interesting, if incomplete, trip down memory lane. The music brought back memories of old apartments, cars, friends, of happy times, of some sad times I suppose but overall it was wonderful. Sitting next to my wife, we smiled at the shared thoughts of road trips, friends at the house, quiet dinners on the patio of a once favorite restaurant. We thought about times together, and on occasion we thought about separate times. It was fun to be with people who were not born until fourteen years after the Eagle's first "Greatest Hits" album made the charts. They humored us...they waited for the one or two songs that they had ever heard of came up and in between they must have been thinking who listened to this...let's find a Metalica Concert or something at least more 80's or 90's than this. Yes I know that Metallica was early 80's but still closer than early 70's

Thanks for the memory, the new image in my tapestry. Now songs from the Eagles will also bring back pictures of this night, we these friends, with all those "old" people. And to the friends who took us...thanks for being part of the tapestry of our lives.