Down by the Cypress Trees

One of my favorite feelings I ever get is that sense of nostalgia when a familiar song comes on and it elicits some sort of memory from my past. It is not only an emotional response to the sounds and the words, but a physical response. Ask anyone who is with me while we are listening to music from the 1990s and 2000s; I get almost immediate goosebumps and the hair stands up on the back of my neck and down my arms.

While feelings of nostalgia can often be accompanied by a sense of longing or loss of something from our past, I choose to look at these memories as ones in which I was truly happy with people around me who loved me and wanted to be in my presence.

My dad is 66 years old now, and while my mom worked for most of my childhood to support our family, it meant a lot of time spent with him. I can remember fondly of days when we would jam out in our old 2002 Oldsmobile Silhouette minivan on trips to and from doctor’s appointments and physical therapy. Likewise, my mom would often take me out for drives with her where we would listen to Pat Benatar and The Ramones at full volume.

When I was 11 years old, I wanted to harness this love for music into something positive, and that is when I learned to play the guitar. I started off, as most young kids did, with a cheap Walmart brand acoustic guitar that made my fingers hurt when I played, but I soon developed into a full-fledged musician. Now, I have a collection of five guitars hanging on my wall – a mixture of acoustic and electric guitars hanging above a 40-watt Fender amplifier on my floor.

While I don’t play guitar much nowadays – going to college down in Tampa made it difficult to make the trek all the way back up to Hernando County to attend my lessons – music has always been a big part of my life.

Now, one of the things I love to do is ride around town in my 2022 Chevrolet Traverse RS, which has been modified so that I can drive from my wheelchair, and listen to music as long as I can tolerate it. Some of my favorite genres nowadays are 1990s and 2000s rock, classic rock, Chillstep, and other bass-heavy tunes.

For me, though, it will always be the classic rock that I grew up listening to. There is nothing like laying on my bed on a rainy afternoon listening to Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd from my amplifier.