In absence of an actual summer vacation, wherein I would leave my house and go somewhere, I have been turning to music for a metaphorical vacation. This idea began yesterday as AJ and I drove to yoga. He has suddenly turned into a teenager and has started complaining about everything. This morning, for example, as his dad accompanied him to his room to supervise the selection of his wardrobe for the day, AJ picked out his Spiderman T-shirt. Then he pointed to one of the nice striped polo shirts in the drawer and said to his father, �You always want me to wear one of those stupid shirts.� He never used to talk like this, but we knew we were in for this sooner or later. We also know exactly where such discourse is coming from (The Girl Next Door and her brother, alas). But of course you cannot tell that to AJ. He�s trying to create his own language. He wants to be like kids and not like us. It�s something every kid needs to do. I was just hoping it would take a little longer.

Anyway, yesterday, as we were driving to yoga, AJ, quite uncharacteristically, began complaining about the music. The radio was tuned to the classical station, which was, at that moment, playing a rather irritating version of a minor league 19th c. symphony. I wasn�t particularly enjoying it either. I pressed the button for our favorite jazz station. A slow instrumental ballad came on. Not peppy enough for AJ. I hit the search button and suddenly Rod Stewart came blaring out of the speakers, �If you want my body, and you think I�m sexy��

�I like this song,� announced AJ. So Rod Stewart it was. But I have a very specific association with that song. I was twelve. It was spring break and my sixth grade class from The American School in London was in Athens as part of a study trip. It was the last day of our Greek tour and we were in an open-air market to explore and pick up gifts for those at home. I bought a small blue and gold vase for my grandmother, a vase that now stands on a small table in my living room. I bought a miniature version of a statue I�d seen in the Art Museum for my brother, Poseidon holding a spear. I bought a bag of enormous sultanas for myself. It was a very old world scene, dark winding city streets, fabric awnings over all. But from a stand selling electronics, belted the very English voice of Rod Stewart, �Come on sugar, let me know!� I grew up in London in the era of the birth of punk rock (see Smed�s fascinating essay on the genre in his post yesterday). I had been fascinated by the black-lined eyes, the safety-pinned cheeks, the enormous Mohawks and oddly shaved hair that I encounted in the underground every day on my way home from school. But for me it was Rod Stewart who was the voice of independence, freedom, separation from my parents, exoticism, possibility.

I had another flashback today as Roxy Music�s �Avalon� came on the radio. I first heard Roxy Music on a mix tape sent to me by a friend the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college. I was working at an arts camp/concert venue in South Jersey. I�d been hired as a public relations intern, but when things got slow, I moonlighted as a violinist in a traveling chamber ensemble, a creative writing teacher and a substitute camp counselor, filling in when regular counselors had the day off and helping out on field trips. We took a lot of field trips, sometimes to concerts in Philadelphia or Camden, N.J. to hear concerts or view art galleries. But the most popular trips were the ones we made to the Jersey Shore. With the chamber ensemble, we went frequently to the primly Victorian town of Cape May. With the kids we went to the grimy boardwalks of Avalon. So while Bryan Ferry was not singing about the Jersey Shore, as far as I know, that song in my head always invokes boardwalks and sticky taffy, the $3 pair of sunglasses that I still have and wear, chasing teens from underneath the steps to the beach, cracking the whip with a line of kids into the waves on a hot, hot day, donating my last dollar to a kid who dropped her ice cream, drinking beer on the porch of the staff trailer later that night when the kids were in bed and rehashing the day under the stars.

What songs send you on vacation?

5 people said it like they meant it