11 Summit Road is a house that will always be near and dear to my heart. My brother was born there, my dog was given to me on my sixth birthday there, I watched my first R-rated movie there, I packed up for college from there. And from there, my mom recently moved. A quaint house nestled on the corner of a tree covered hill, my childhood home was the place of many memories. One of my favorite memories however is simple, sitting on the stools in the kitchen as a child watching my mom cook while listening to The Doors.
As an average Jewish girl in public school growing up on Long Island, most people expected me to listen to The Spice Girls and Hanson, but my music taste was decades older than me. Though there were times where I would force my mom to change the radio station to Z100 or Radio Disney, I grew to appreciate her love for rock music, old and new. My first CD? I enjoyed it, though at the time I probably had no idea what Jim Morrison was singing about.
A few weeks ago, as my mom packed up the house and the memories, I found my old yearbooks, love letters and camp stationary. But, in the back of my closet, I found this first CD I ever received. Scratched disc, box broken and artwork creased. I am not a skeptic and have a hard time reading between the lines, but the symbolism here was obvious. This album reminded me of those times sitting doing algebra in the kitchen, under appreciated and background noise. But over the years, my appreciation for this musical masterpiece has grown greatly. Jim Morrison’s poetry, Robbie Krieger’s fingers strumming on the guitar and Ray Manzarek’s chords – all worked together to create poetry that always seemed fit and appropriate at those given moments.
But now, it’s different.
Life on my very own Love Street has changed. Over the years, I have become scratched, broken and creased. I have moved to Manhattan, I have lost a family member, I have been offered a real job and I have tried caviar. Of course the first thing I did when I got back to my apartment that night… Download the entire album to my iPod. And since then, whenever Love Street comes on shuffle the memories from my very first walk up Summit Road to my last drive ever down the block, play through.
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