whoa, ah, mercy, mercy me....

oh, things ain't what they used to be...how sad that Marvin Gaye's lyrics still stand so many decades later...but for me, when I hear that song, it is not the sadness and dismay of pollution rotting Mother Earth that I hear...it is the ocean waters of Brooklyn...it is the cry of vendors, "get your knishes here...ice cream here...coca cola"...it is the cry of mothers warning their kids not to wade too deep...it's the songs blasting from transistor radios...and I smell Coppertone, and sand and sea...I cannot tell you why...but it is good...it is more than good to go back to that time and space...where for a few brief hours the world and it's violence were buried in a sand castle...my worries thinking about that first day of middle school a few short weeks away swept out in the waters off Coney Island...and so, last week...turning up the A/C as we slipped from winter to summer in a spring minute...Marvin came on the radio...and I smiled...and turned it loud...and forgot about every news story...twitter feed...and a daunting and boring to do list...I cranked that song up and I was eleven again...burying my brother in the sand...giggling and freckling and not giving a shit about any of it...still tasting that chocolate fudgesicle in the corners of my lips...no worries about what it would do to my hips...there is magic in the music...ah, mercy, mercy me...sometimes memories are just what you used to be...