Gypsy

. I overheard "Gypsy" by the infamous group Fleetwood Mac for the first time, I felt an obscure pressure to move. The night drew humid, awhile the damp smell of fertilizer seeped heavily inside my bedroom window. Hot bursts of wind blew steadily throughout my small bedroom in midst drizzled rain. This was the summer before freshman year of college. I was anxious, bored yet, apprehensive to move away from home. Every night before bed I wrote throughout a journal of short stories or poems as I listened to music into the wee hours of the morning. I overheard "Gypsy" by accident on an old radio cassette player my father bought me as birthday present when I was sixteen. Being the night owl that I was I tentatively listened to "night storm" aloud as I would set nearby my bedroom window.

I can't fully explain my initial reaction to "Gypsy" but I remember how I stopped writing and listened carefully of the lyrics. I tried to fathom how such a woman can sing so captivating and demure. One might slip off the edge of their placid seat midway through "Dream" or "Rhiannon" as Stevie Nicks can leave you quite enamored. As a dreamer, I find it hard not to drift away in place. Mind you I would set on the floor for hours writing. No song to date in my opinion is as mystical as "Gypsy." Quickly I heard the lyrics,

"Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice

Oh and it lights up the night,

And you see your gypsy,

See your gypsy"

My imagination reverted to a woman of lofty presence to appear within the darkness of a thunderstorm. The very beat or sound glides about the surface of a guitar and drum so fiercely I nearly jerk in place to keep ahold balance. There is a bound romanticism within the unknown. At this point in my life I wished nothing more than to travel. I envisioned newer horizons of tall wheat grass fields driving interstate as the sun sets a fluorescent gold, purple and bronze glow before sunrise. Although vintage, it was involuntarily as I could not afford a smartphone, IPhone or MP3 player. Those my age casually spoke of Facebook, Twitter or YouTube more frequently than ever. I had lesser advantage than others in terms of technological use throughout a time when social media likely flourished. Be it the year Facebook truly became popular necessity. President Obama was in office a second year of his first term, two years before the horrific, evasive murder of Trayvon Martin. As peers my age tapped into the twenty-first century, I could barely look up from a computer keyboard. Majority of the time my sister and I were home alone as our father was rarely home. His presence rather ghostly or sporadic, everyone individually shifted by the day. This was a moment in which all was remembered. I listened quickly again to the lyrics,

"To the gypsy

That remains

Her face says freedom

With a little fear

I have no fear

I have only love

And if I was a child

And the child was enough

Enough for me to love

Enough to love"

"She is dancing away from you now

She was just a wish

She was just a wish

And her memory is all that is left for you now

You see your gypsy, oh

You see your gypsy"

If I can gingerly take a step back into the summer of 2010, my feet may never touch the ground. I was nervous, excited, bored yet, anxious. In between my grandmother's half drunken visits, (we could tell her arrival by the loud clanks and thuds of her navy blue Lincoln continental) or my father's mysterious whereabouts (my sister and I were very used to being home alone); I wrote daily and listened to music. My heart was in tune with all that I ever knew as a youth. In an out of reality and unexplainable hardship, I drew to writing as an escape. Here today and gone tomorrow, I respect the fervor of a song so delicious it haunts me even until now. Now I struggle to regain the peace in which I had at eighteen.

Gypsy lyrics founded from this website: https://g.co/kgs/FAZ4ob

Start writing...hb