January and cold
The year of The Big Snow
When everybody got brittle and broke.
A 3am picnic and slides of Salzburg
With a man who walked
On the wrong side of velvet.

Detroit was dynamic and dangerous, wildly political, and the music - in clubs, in cars, and on the radio - was strong and plentiful. Malcom X was known as Detroit Red, and I knew a girl from Flint who swore she was his daughter. Before the infamous Detroit riots of 1967, it was racially integrated by class, by taste in music and degree of radical thought, and nearly every hippie I knew carried a gun.

One night the FCTP brought me a copy of �Lush Life�, by John Coltrane and played a song for me, �Like Someone in Love�. Ever notice how a jazz ballad is constructed like a romantic relationship? First, a straight-ahead version of the line is played, then the tune begins to split into parts, each person taking a turn expressing aspects of the melody. Sometimes the time signature doubles or even squares, or it begins to unravel and to be explained differently, as it is understood by the player. Sometimes the notes are skipped, elongated, rendered atonal or underplayed. Sometimes a wonderful musical chaos ensues. But, in the end, the line is restated, the chords are resolved, and the tune concludes. It�s then, like now, that the song and the love become memory.

Deana Goldin, cat, music, food, and book lover, is a psychotherapist in Chicago

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.