One Last Shot

I will always see the dirt road and canal behind 117 E 100 S Burley, ID. 

Back before I had an iPod--back before anyone really had an iPod--I had a simple discman.

One little portable device that could play one solitary CD at a time. 

I saw "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" for the first time with one of my then-best friends, E. 

Gosh. We must have been, what, 12? It was sometime before the huge blow-up; before steps were taken and words were mistaken and everything ended up so differently .

We went with her mom--which only reaffirms that we must have been 12, because otherwise we couldn't have gotten in. 

The details are oh so fuzzy...and it feels so long ago, but for some reason, I can't shake the idea that these things are fact. 

I saw "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" for the first time with one of my then-best friends, E. 

I say for the first time, because I distinctly remember taking my mom to see it (well, she took me, being the adult and possessing a driver's license and money and all) for my second time. 

I remember this so distinctly because I felt sick that night, and had to leave for the bathroom during Captain Jack and Will Turner's swordfight in the blacksmithery. 

I'm losing my point. It's drowning in a puddle of soft-hearted nostalgia that got left somewhere on Memory Lane. 

But the point is this: I spent so much time out past the pasture, sitting by the canal, listening to this song. 

I ran to that canal when I was mad, when I was upset, when I just wanted to be alone, when I wanted to think or dream... It was my spot. 

A sort of poor girl's ocean, I guess, but there always has been something so soothing about the sound and sight of moving water. 

I've loved film score since...well, since I can't remember when. It was the gateway drug to classical music, my first deviation from pop and country and 80's ballads. 

I wasn't raised on Tchaikovsky and Beethoven and Brahms--I knew who they were, sure, and I always had a deep love for the Fantasia movies, and music has always been a part of me, but I wasn't raised on a strict diet of classical music.

I don't even know, now, that I wish I had been. 

In a way, I was introduced to Tchaik and Ludwig and Johannes through film score. 

And for that reason, some of my greatest memories are set to various tracks from various popular movies. 

And that's why this track, and the first movie of the Pirates franchise, will always take me back to that dirt road. To that spot that sank just a little lower, close enough that I could reach my feet in the water without fear of falling all in, surrounded by tall weeds and not-too-disgusting bugs. Summer time and late afternoons, when the sun wasn't directly above, but just beginning to leave, making the canal water glittery and exciting. The faint breeze that so often accompanies any type of Idaho weather, rushing the water along, creating tiny waves in the middle of my poor-excuse for an ocean. 

Oh how I loved that spot. And this song. And this movie. 

Which brings me to why I even thought to start this post. 

It's nothing big or earth-shattering: I watched the 4th Pirates movie today. Funny, entertaining, a bit sweet, and a bit adventurous, but not really my cup of tea. 

I much prefer the first three installments. 

I still haven't decided if that's just nostalgia talking, or if the first three really were better. 

Corny Will & Elizabeth love story and all. 

...to be fair, though, maybe that's why I like them so much more. 

I mean, cuz, really, didn't we all fall a little bit for Will Turner? 

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Yeah. It's probably just the nostalgia talking.