The memory of time

Today I met an old friend. I was listening to my iPhone 5 on shuffle, and the opening bass chords of Stings Fields of Gold came on. Until then I had been doing things, ya know in that doing, doing, doing, phase. Go here, do that etc. The music playing was just white noise. Providing a wall of soundtrack that I wasn’t listening to. Then that bum bum -bummm bummm bum bum -bumm bumm into bass line came on and I was stopped. Slapped in the face by 1993. And it was delicious. I was 13 and so happy. Stings voice from the nineties took me back to that Billy who was blissfully innocent and happy to be the only black kid. The one, in everything. Unaware of the injustices and predjudices. Happily watching Disney movies and singing Part of Your World with a towel wrapped around my head subbing in for my lack of red mermaid locks. Totally ignorant of the fact no person of my color was in the film. I wasn’t smart enough then to realize Sebastian the clearly Jamaican black voiced crab, was part of Disneys long history of making recognizable black character voices animals, or specifically non human. (Trolls in Frozen) I was young, stupid, and happy pretending to be Ariel. A Caucasian, Mermaid. Even sea humans were all white apparently.
Anyway. sting brought back a simpler time when I knew nothing of black studies or paid attention to suffering. (Even my own). You’re so desperate to fit in at 13.
Thanks Sting. It was nice to visit little Billy. Yes I miss those days, but I wouldn’t want to return. sting video