Tape Recorder

Photo Credit - Erik Mclean

As you get older, you come across paths that you have forgotten, and for me, it happens through music. Some songs become a part of your life’s soundtrack, and others are quiet and patient. They wait until the right moment to return to your memory as if it never left. 

“Like a Stone” wasn’t just a song for me, it was a road that I will never forget riding on. The hummed feeling buzzed beneath something I was too young then to understand. 

I was eight years old and sitting shotgun in a car with my dad. The faint smell of old leather and coolant was never able to get rid of the graveyard shift coffee that had turned cold. My feet dangled from my seat, and the world moved faster as the trees blurred into green shadows as they outran the dangers of something invisible. My baseball glove sat there next to me, a bit snug and very hopeful, just like all things were back then. 

My father wasn’t a man of many words, but he never needed them.

His music filled the silence, not with awkwardness, but a preciousness. We both knew that engaging in an outside conversation would somehow ruin the moment. The song would open low and deliberate, like footsteps that echoed down a school hallway. The bass didn’t just begin to play, it entered the room. It moved through the car and into my body, it settled somewhere between my ribs, and found a home in my heart. 

There is a line that is about the longing for home and waiting. I just used to sing along then, not understanding but feeling it. At eight, the concept of loneliness was something that could be made out. It was known to me as more of a texture, or a quiet pause between. This song presented that pause, stretched it out, and made it into something beautiful. 

My dad would tap his left pointer finger on the steering wheel, never missing a beat. He wasn’t performing; he was letting the music pass through him in the same way as me. I would sit there with my small and watchful eyes, absorbing everything with a realization that I was learning how to feel while being a dozen horizons away. 

Those drives would impact me for the rest of my life. At home, some expectations make you feel as if it is performance review day, other things remain unspoken. The presence of my mother makes me feel the need to be careful, composed, and measured. I learned early on that I needed to have all my ducks in a row and needed to know how to present what was “acceptable”. Yet when I’m in the car, with the cool air of cracked windows swiping my neck as the wind whispers, I don’t have to act, I don’t have to fear. 

The bass would come back, heavier with each beat. It invaded my chest, it was grounding. The feeling of weight would be lifted, and nothing needed to be said at all. The chorus would come next, reaching with desire about being home even when that place doesn’t belong to you. At the time, all I knew was the feeling, but I never doubted the words wouldn't follow. The feeling of searching would never leave. 

The sight of the baseball field came too quickly. The crunching of the gravel under the tires as we entered the parking lot broke the spell just as the engine fell silent. The song lingered a few seconds longer, like it was soaking into the air and the seats, and then into our souls. 

My dad would look at me, and that was enough to say everything needed.

Years passed, as they do, without permission. Eight became eighteen, then older, and heavier. The world swelled, and so did the drawbacks. The places I once felt unquestionable became inescapable. The parts of myself that I jammed in the glovebox are ready to burst out.

College is loud, but not the same kind I know. It's not just about the noise, but it’s pressure and assumptions. The constant buzz of being dedicated to work in a field you weren’t entirely sure you wanted to be in. 

Then one late, exhausting night, in a room that doesn’t feel like it belongs to me, we found each other again.  

It started just as I remembered it, low and deliberate. I recognized it without a second thought. Not just the first few notes, but the weight it had. The bass didn’t just enter; it returned home. It moved through my veins with familiarity, pumping into my heart. It was a love that I could have never expected. 

All it took was one blink, and I was back in the car.

The smell of the leather, the quiet that the rolled-up windows kept in, my father sitting beside me in the driver's seat. A stage in my life where the definition of complication meant almost missing recess because another kid wouldn’t stop talking as we lined up at the colorfully decorated oak door.

Now it all made sense. 

The lyrics screamed what I couldn’t understand back then. 

The endless search. 

The longing for something permanent in a world that will always be shifting, even if you can’t feel it under your feet. 

The something in the song about “finding a home” and going around didn’t feel hypothetical. It was like a recurring thought that I had in the back of my mind for years that came back to the front. 

I sat there, older in more ways than one, and feeling the bass vibrate my body again. Every time we pull something to the surface, it is revealing. All my childhood fears, the silence that became my living space and the small moments where peace became a lifeline without me ever noticing. 

I realized that those moments I shared with my dad weren’t just hushed drives, they were anchors. Those moments proved that while there are pressures, assumptions and uncertainty, there is a space where I could just be myself. Maybe that's what this is all supposed to be about. Not just the process of waiting, but truly enduring. Not just what you are searching for, but remembering everything along the way. 

What some might describe as the “good life” isn’t a straight path. Honestly, there might not be a destination or even a “true” direction. It can be built out of moments that have been carved from destruction, chaos and beauty. Pieces of yourself that you get a chance to reclaim after being buried alive. 

There’s hell in this, too. Straight cinematic hell, but not the loud kind. The kind where parts of yourself get lost and you have to choose if you want to move forward without them. The kind where you realize the mask is easier to wear than being yourself. But it becomes the only thing that feels real.

As the song comes to an end, I gain something I wouldn’t have had at the age of eight. The escape I saw in those moments was my dad; he was teaching me a lesson. Stillness and presence are the most powerful connections you can have, and sometimes you just don't need words. 

The song faded, and my automix began to transition us to the current year. The feeling ached for a long time after.

For the first time, I didn’t feel like I had to search for anchors. I finally found the one that would secure me. I’m not completely repaired nor wrapped, yet it’s enough to know that things are real. 

Like a stone, perhaps.

Unfelt and static.

But fixed, established.

Alive.