Zach Bryan Shows the Way
If the drivers passing me on the streets of suburban Washington, D.C. knew what was happening in my Volvo, they would be shocked.
Who the hell is Zach Bryan? And how did he get access to my soul?
I have spent the last several days playing Zach Bryan’s music in my car. Really just one song, over and over again. Oklahoma Smokeshow. I find it strange that this is the song that I have become obsessed with. I am not from Oklahoma, and I don’t believe anyone would refer to me as a smoke show anymore. I am a 48-year-old mom of two dragging myself through an existential crisis, wondering “how did I get here?”
I am positive if the drivers passing me on the streets of suburban Washington, D.C. knew what was happening in my Volvo, they would be shocked. The song is blaring in my car. Turned all the way up while I am singing, or rather screaming, along.
Which is so bizarre because typically I have to lower the music to make sure I turn down the right road. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lectured my teenage daughters about the dangers of playing loud music while driving. “For goodness sakes, you won’t be able to hear emergency vehicles!”
But recently, a new version of myself has taken over my SUV. What I am having difficulty understanding is, why? What is it about this song that it must be kept on repeat to and from tennis practice? Or is it Zach Bryan? His voice does reach my soul. I am aware that this is a corny thing to say, but OMG, it’s true.
I don’t know much about him. I do know he’s too young for me to be fantasizing about. Yet here I am, dreaming of him strumming his guitar and singing to me on a deserted beach in Mexico by a bonfire. Singing to me all night long. I promise that is where it ends. Which is even more confusing to me and solidifies my belief that it is in fact about the music, not the man.
I love the rasp in his voice. It pierces through me. I love that he sounds like he really, really means what he is singing about. I feel he’s singing only to me.
But why this song and not others? I can’t remember the last time I felt the need to play a song again and again. In my early twenties, my roommate and I were passengers in her boyfriend’s car for a two-hour road trip. He played Fly by Sugar Ray the entire drive. I found it rude and frankly, absurd. What a loser. Move on to the next song, please.
Now, I find I can’t move on either. Oklahoma Smokeshow was on repeat on the way to the grocery store today. On the way home, I was annoyed when my daughter called, interrupting my favorite verse, the one I have been anticipating for the past minute and a half.
When I got home, I took out my phone and asked Google why this is happening to me. It turns out, there are several reasons scientists have found to explain why people listen to a song on a loop. It has been studied!
“When we listen to music—which is by nature repetitive anyway—it releases a high, a rush of dopamine in our brains that we’re immediately drawn to replicate until we die (or hate the song we’re playing),” music professor Peter Vurst told Noisey. Ok, so I can add this to my list of dopamine enhancers, below my glass of wine and pickleball. Interesting. But this doesn’t quite ring true for me. So I keep reading and learn that according to psychologist Dr. Audrey Tang, “A song that we know well can bring us comfort through its predictability.” I love predictable, very much.
But it wasn’t until I started reading Dr. Alice Honig’s insight that things began to make sense. “Because music is so tied to our emotions,” she says, “the song you’re listening to might be getting you through a rough time, or even helping you get more in touch with what you’re feeling.” Dr. Honig goes on to suggest, “When you listen to a song over and over again it can help you do reflective listening to think, What are some of my feelings that this one is helping me get in tune with?”
I decide to revisit my favorite verse of my new favorite song, and try to understand the emotions tied to it. I realize by the last line there is a lump in my throat. Suddenly, I get it. I’ve lost touch with myself. Life has become so busy with motherhood, and keeping up with the neighbors. Now that things have slowed down, my body is reminding me that I have neglected my dreams.
She used to play in the yard and she would dream of one day Until the world came around and took her dreaming away Told her how to dress and act and smile
When I hear these lyrics, an image of myself as a kid appears, wearing my favorite t-shirt that had the words Anything Boys Can Do, Girls Can Do Better, printed on it along with a photo of Pebbles from the Flintstones roasting s’mores. I have mentioned this shirt many times in my life, but I have been the only one who remembers it. My mom suggested I made it up. But low and behold, at my Uncle Phil’s funeral last year, amongst all the family photos he collected, and my cousins displayed, there I was wearing the shirt during one of his trips to Arizona.
The girl in the photo believed that she could do anything. She kept up with the boys on bikes after school. She participated in tarantula races, one time picking the fastest spider. She helped build forts and loved to play dodgeball. Where did she go? And more importantly, where can I find her now?
I must have left her in Arizona. Yet when I moved to the East Coast at age 23, alone, knowing no one, I did feel free. I had a basement apartment in a decent neighborhood, the bathroom door didn’t shut all the way, and I found cockroaches in the cupboards. But it was mine.
There was a bus stop a block away that dropped me off at the front door of the office building I worked in
My future husband worked in the same office building. We met a couple weeks before he moved offices and began dating seriously. We were engaged less than a year later, married a year after that. I was teaching at a charter school when I first got pregnant. My husband and I did the math, and my salary would be comparable to daycare or a nanny. It made financial sense for me to stay home, and, hey, I majored in Child Development, I should be good at this!
Listening to Zach Bryan, I wonder if I can find a grown-up version of the girl in the photo? A woman so sure of herself. Who says “yes” to any adventure, naughty or not. I’ve held onto life so tightly the past two decades. I’ve wanted to do everything right with my kids, probably to a fault. Definitely at the expense of my little inner warrior: The girl with the yellow BMX bike, who didn’t care about appearances or what others might think of her crooked bangs.
I prepared myself for the grief I would encounter when my daughters left for college. But what no one told me was the day my youngest child became a licensed driver, I would be out of a job. My driving services became disposable. There was no more time for breakfast; she would hit Starbucks on the way to school. Meanwhile, dinner died a slow death at the hands of DoorDash. I am not needed anymore. I wonder if other people are wondering what I’m doing with myself these days. Sometimes I wonder, myself.
I’ve been living my life for others the past 20 years, hyper-focused on my two daughters’ needs and desires. I now have the opportunity to take advantage of the freedom embodied by the girl in the photo, but I am searching for permission to use it. I feel ashamed sleeping past 7 a.m. and filling my days with yoga, tennis, and pickleball. When my husband asks me what I am doing today, I feel indulgent listing off my self-improvement “to-do” list as he heads to work.
Scrolling through social media recently, I read an inspirational quote by Rumi that said, “Respond to Every Call That Excites Your Spirit.” I think he’s referring to the feeling you get on a roller coaster. Why does that seem like such a novel idea to me? The exciting things this life has to offer, I’ve been ignoring. I’ve looked away from the signals my body has been sending to follow my dreams. It took listening to a song at least a hundred times for me to pay attention.
Planning a pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago, I find the roller coaster feeling. Walking for days in silence, while connecting with nature and God is exciting to me. The inner warrior jumps up and down when I start researching the trip. My heart beats faster imagining arriving at the small inns along the way, rewarded with Spanish food and wine after traveling twenty miles a day on foot. I can hear Zach Bryan’s voice whispering (platonically) in my ear to book the trip.
This past year, I lost my breasts and a best friend to the same disease. To heal, I plunged into therapy, acupuncture, reiki, yoga, and meditation. These efforts toward spiritual awakening have been instrumental in getting me through my day-to-day struggles. But it is a song that brought me the revelation I’ve been seeking. The girl in the photo knew that waiting for permission was futile, and now, so do I. Thank you Zach Bryan. I hope to see you in Mexico soon. ▩