Wanting Memories

Most of us have that one song. The one we can't help but listen to when it comes on, the one we seek out when it's been a rough day, the one that makes us either dance or cry - but never anything in between.

Ysaye Barnwell's "Wanting Memories" worked its way into my soul from the first time I heard it. I listened to it over and over at work when I was first sent the link. I could help it. It spoke to me even though I didn't consciously know why.

There were a few lines that really stood out...

"I think on the things that made me laugh, made me dance, made me sing. I think on the things that made me grow into a being full of pride. I think on these things - for they are true."

"I know that I am you and you are me and we are one. I know that who I am is numbered in each grain of sand."

​Ysaye Barnwell dedicated this song to her father, and realized it was the "unconscious wish" of an only child when her parents passed away years later and she was digging through their attic and found bags of old photos and journals - of them, of other family members, and of her.

It's so easy to discount childhood - its easy laughter and simple joys. It's easy to brand that phase of life as not the real thing, to look ahead to adulthood. But these things were, and are, true.

Who we were as children is a part of who we become as adults. Our experiences mold us and become a part of us. We are our parents and they are us. We are the sum of our experiences, and we transcend our experiences.

I think this song resonates with me because it guides me to reflect on what matters, on who taught it to me, on how it will mold my life in the future. As we grow up, we learn "to see the beauty in the world through [our] own eyes" - but the way we see it was shaped first as children. And the beauty that children see is great.

I'm excited to share this piece with you on our November 17 concert, and I hope that it, or another song, sinks into your heart as it and so many others have mine.


​Becky