"Seven Bridges Road"

Beach Memories

“There are stars in the southern sky,

southward as you go.

There is moonlight and moss in the trees,

down the Seven Bridges Road...”

Stephen T. Young (Seven Bridges Road)

Remember this old song? Just about every singer from my generation covered it at one time or another, but the Eagles were the ones to make it famous. Ian Mathews' version is the one I woke up with playing it in my head this morning. There is no more iconic Southern ballad, both in its haunting lyrics and in its slow delivery. I can just see that moss hanging in the trees.

We don't have moss in the trees here in Birmingham, but we are now at the peak of summer, and everyone's inclination is to head for the beach where moss abounds. It's funny, isn't it, how our gut remembers and a familiar old yearning begins from we know not where, to rise up in our consciousness and set our sights “southward as we go.” I can hark back to many a trip to the Alabama coastline—some happy times, some miserable times. Being close to the ocean has a way of conjuring both.

“And I have loved you like a baby,

like some lonesome child.

And I have loved you in a tame way,

And I have loved you wild...”

The ocean is a big old pool of the unconscious holding everything—what we remember, and what we don't remember, what we have deeply repressed. When we go there physically, all that memory draws near. I don't know about you, but standing at the ocean's edge is mesmerizing for me. I can sit all day, and simply watch and listen, as wave after wave of memory washes up and recedes back. Sometimes thrilling, sometimes melancholy. Reality quietly ebbs away and we are alone there with the sand, the water and the memories.

“Sometimes there's a part of me

has to turn from here and go.

Running like a child from these warm stars,

Down the Seven Bridges Road...”

Yes, it's no mistake that the ocean, the trees hanging with moss, the ebb and flow of the tides, brings out soulful music in some, and wistful memories in others. It connects us with the primordial past; brings it right up to the surface, where we can smell the saltwater breeze, and remember.

                                               In the Spirit,

                                                    Jane