The Grafton Voice

Close to My Heart
by: Jen Chura

As I sit here, waiting for my dad to tell me it’s okay to go see my grandfather in the hospital, finishing up the one application for which I hope I get called in for an interview , I put on itunes. Itunes apparently hates me, because it kept, in it’s random shuffling, giving me songs that were not in and of themselves sad, but were connected to memories I don’t want to feel but at the same time don’t want to let go of. After it went to yet another version of “Born to Run” I decided that I had had it, and hit next once more, only to land on Rufus Wainwright. Poses. One of my top 5 favorite albums of all time. And I realized as I typed away at an essay entitled “why I am the best person for this job”, that this album was clean. Happy. Devoid of bad feelings. It is entirely my own.

An ex had once said that couples ruin certain tunes by having “their song”, that is thus tainted for the rest of their lives , and then proceeded a few minutes later to play “high fidelity” with me by presenting my eardrums with songs that were “ours”. We had never named them such, but they were, and he knew it. Because every song had a meaning, and made us feel connected. And now itunes taunts me with them.

It’s the same for everyone. “Oh my God, change the channel, that Journey song is on! I danced with so and so to that song!” Music is a language, the most easily accessible, because even if you don’t technically speak it (I’ve been studying most of my life and am STILL not fluent), you can understand it. You can speak your own dialect. You can talk to someone in Russia with it, and they will understand. It clings to the inside of your heart, and while it doesn’t mean to, like a mosquito who only wants to have dinner and consciously has no intention of making you itch, it leaves its mark.

Rufus Wainwright. Poses. Makes me feel better about life in general. Because it’s mine. It’s about me and my love for Rufus. It’s about driving through spring sprinkled afternoons, littered with stray sunbeams falling from green leaves. It’s about walking between the snowflakes across parking lots, building to building to get to evening classes, rehearsals, blue woven mittens and hooded parkas. Visions of Europe, how I am transported to France and Italy and Spain as I navigate New York back streets. It is mine and always will be.