Yesterday
Yesterday by The Beatles. I’ve heard it one thousand times. I got sick of it. Over and over again, those opening chords. I know the lyrics from memory. I can feel every feeling in Paul McCartney’s voice as the melody ascends in the opening line. I got sick of it. I took it off my playlists. I clicked next when it came on. I didn’t want to hear more than the first two seconds. I couldn’t stand to hear his voice. And it went like that for years. But then I heard it one day, and I realized again that it really is a beautiful song. It’s such a sad song.
When I was younger I thought of love. I heard the words and took them at face value. I thought of heartache, as all young people do. Today, I’m sitting in the living room, looking out at the purple sky closing our day. Yesterday. It’s sadder than I knew. I am, now, painfully aware of time and history. Aging does that. Yesterday was 1965. All my troubles seemed so far away. It feels like it can all be an allegory about something greater than young love. (Is there anything greater than young love?) Something that is all of us. I is we, and my is our.
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