“You ain’t been blue” is how it starts. I recall as a teenager playing that record (a disk with grooves that when encountered with a special needle produced sound) over and over again. I would dance and dance around the room singing with the music, getting dizzy and singing louder each time it played. But with every new start I would need to place the needle back to the beginning. The more times I did that, the happier I would become. It was so wonderful that I felt my feet lifting about a foot off the floor as if I were flying.
Once I confided that to my mother. She told me. “You must have been dreaming.”
I never thought that. Perhaps it was some type of trance. After about 20 rounds of Mood Indigo, I felt so well, so free and so completely clear in clear in my mind. next, I would open the dormer window to look out over the Kenwood area of Hyde Park. It was quite a good view of all the old Victorian homes. Some had carriage houses. Ours had a two car garage. It seems many years ago the carriage house had burned down. It was so wonderful to have my own private room.
For many years, the third floor of the house on Kimbark Avenue had been rented. About a year ago, the renter moved out. As I was the oldest, my parents offered the third floor bedroom to me. It even had a bathroom next to it.***
I really loved having my private space. I loved to listen to lots of records. Mood Indigo,was my definite favorite. I also had time to read poetry from my father’s leather bound complete works of Shakespeare. So many poems I totally loved like “Let me not to the marriage of free minds admit impediment” . At that time I was a timid, quiet girl who preferred to be alone with my imagination when I was at home after school and on the weekends. I loved to have Mood Indigo take over my mind and my body.
*** Thinking of that gesture many years afterwards, I don’t really understand why. Maybe the rest of the family did not feel the way I did about Mood Indigo.
