When The First Few Notes Are Enough

When the First Few Notes Are Enough
It only takes a few notes.

You can be standing in your kitchen, driving home from work, wandering through a store, minding your own business—
and suddenly, you are somewhere else.
Not remembering it.
There.

The room looks different. Your hair is different. Your knees are considerably more cooperative.
And somebody has turned the music up.

There are songs that seem to carry entire pieces of our lives inside them.

Le Freak is one of those for me.
Put it on and somewhere in my brain, a door swings open.

I can see people dancing. I can hear somebody laughing from across the room.
I remember summer nights when music floated through open windows and screen doors. Block parties where somebody's stereo became everybody's stereo. Somebody always knew the words. Somebody always knew the dance.
And somebody who had spent the last twenty minutes insisting she wasn't getting up—
was absolutely getting up.

That's what I love about old songs.
They don't ask permission before bringing things back.

A person.
A place.
A summer.
The way you felt before you knew how quickly years could move.

Sometimes even a version of yourself you haven't visited in a very long time.
And maybe that's why hearing those songs now feels different.
Back then, it was just music playing while life happened.
We didn't know we were creating a soundtrack.
We were too busy living it.
Now one familiar bass line can bring an entire evening rushing back.
And for three minutes and thirty seconds, the years between then and now get very, very small.

So if an old song catches you today—
don't skip it.
Turn it up.
Let yourself remember.

And if your shoulders start moving and your booty starts swaying before you've officially agreed to dance?
Well.

Your body apparently remembers too.

Come live a little.

XO Liz 🧡😎😊