Otis

There are milestones I’ll never remember, and one of them may have been the first time the notes kissed my ears. Or were they her lips? She taught me which songs were worth it, and I know the words to almost all of them. Learning anything when you are young is a great blessing. Although the body doesn’t, I have forgotten the first time we listened to Motown together. To the Temptations and Smokey Robinson. In the game room of the house I grew up in, Ohio Players, The Commodores, and the Isley Brothers records hung on the wall in frames. Music always rang up the stairs, through the high ceilings and behind walls. It sits in my bones and jumps when the tunes come on. Whether it is at the grocery store or on the radio, and all the old feelings overwhelm my body as I sing and dance to the music. I bought her a record for her last birthday, Otis Redding. I asked her to play it and she said she had to find the old record player so we could. She stopped looking and we forgot about it. I still saw the record sitting on the counter in the corner, waiting to be played and hoping she finds it. I imagine when I get one of my own, they will all be sitting next to it. All the old records that now sit in my closet, and all the songs that wait in the corner of my bones, waiting for a hand or a needle to push us back into the music. More at : http://brendenpettingill.com/index.php/2017/12/12/otis/