Love is a Mixtape

I have known about this book for a long time. I have known who Rob Sheffield is from those VH-1 marathons and always liked what he had to say. But somehow I never picked this book up till now. Shocking, really, given the title and my fervant belief that a mix tape is the best gift ever.


"Have you ever been in a car with a southern girl blasting through South Carolina when Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Call Me the Breeze' comes on the radio? Sunday afternoon, sun out, windows down, nowhere to hurry back to? I never had. I was twenty three. Renee turned up the radio and began screaming along. Renee was driving. She always preferred driving, since she said I drove like an old Irish lady. I thought to myself, Well, I have wasted my whole life up to this moment. Any other car I've ever been in was just to get me here, any road I've ever been on was just to get me here, any other passenger seat I've ever sat on, I was just riding here. I barely recognized this girl sitting next to me, just screaming along to the piano solo.



I thought, There is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment. I could count the places I would not rather be. I've always wanted to see New Zealand, but I'd rather be here. The majestic ruins of Machu Picchu? I'd rather be here. A hillside in Cuenca, Spain sipping coffee and watching leaves fall? Not even close. There is nowhere else I could imagine wanting to be besides here in this car, with this girl, on this road, listening to this song. If she breaks my heart, no matter what hell she puts me through, I can say it was worth it, just because of right now. Out the window is a blur and all I can really hear is this girl's hair flapping in the wind, and maybe if we drive fast enough the universe will lose track of us and forget to stick us somewhere else.

But I've read it now and was floored by its depth. See I missed the part in the subtitle about loss so was unprepared for its frank, unvarnished look at bereavement. I thought it was a love story, and it is, but it's also so much more.

"I never planned to get married when I was only twenty five and I'm not sure exactly how it happened -neither of us officially proposed, or anything dramatic like that. It started off as a playful fantasy we talked about. Then the fantasy became a plan, the way fantasies sometimes do, and the plan became a future. It didn't hit us as the climax of anything, just the celebration of something that had already happened to us. I guess we hoped the celebration would help us understand what had happened."

The trouble with coming so late to the party is that I can't offer myself as Sheffield's #1 fan, I wouldn't even be 101 at this point. But please count me among the many for in his blurring of love and music I read a kindred spirit.