fall to pieces

to mark the occasion of my twenty-first birthday, which was exactly ten years plus ten days ago today, i went to a dive of a karaoke club in portland with my mom and my two cousins, melanie and chrissy.  as i recall, it was bad in all the ways that every twenty-first birthday at a cheesy karaoke club is...spinning disco ball, flashing lights, outdated videos on the teleprompter, horrible off-key singing to all the wrong song choices, weak drinks....you know the scene.  but then, as i recall, it was good for all those same reasons.  my mom and i, in an attempt to bond over karaoke, gruesomely butchered our duet to"wayward wind", which was one of my mom's favorite songs.  and oh man, did we slaughter it.  remembering the way mom gripped the mic, feeling it, remembering the way she belted those words out of key, tossing her hair meaningfully at all the important parts, the wayward wiiiind that yearns to waaaander!...man that was special.  and now, i can't hear that song without crying....and laughing.   remembering how she sang from her heart, sang the words that meant so much to her....the memory is just unbelievably precious to me now, especially now that she's gone.   that night, we sang, drinking not too much but just enough to get us up there performing...and man were we awful, laughing hard from the gut at how foreign our voices sounded coming through those speakers.  we made fools of ourselves, it was total foolishness, the best of times, imagining we were the stars of the evening.  and maybe, just maybe we were. remembering it now, it was the perfect way to celebrate twenty one years under my belt.  remembering it now, ten years later, i fall to pieces, wishing i could press rewind and live it all over again. 

patsy cline: how can i face tomorrow