Gold Dust

Dear Shawn,

There was a dark night I walked around campus listening to Fleetwood Mac's Gold Dust Woman on my Walkman (yeah, still the 1980s!). I'd heard the song a hundred times, but that night, I really heard it...for the first time.

I listened to it over and over that night, while paying attention to the moss hanging from the trees near the dorms, to the stars hanging in the sky, to the breeze flowing through the pines making whooshing noises.

I listened to it time and again that night, hearing the wails, the moans, the emotion, the sorrow and the story. The song simply stole me and I was enthralled at its beauty and majesty. I became gold dust that night. It's never left me. I guess it never will.

Something had been bothering me, some sort of college stress. I don't remember now, I'm sure it was about a test, or some sort of social pressures. I was involved in politics, much as I was in high school, so maybe that was weighing heavily on me. I grabbed my Walkman and that tape and just walked around the darkened campus, listening to Rumors. When I got to Gold Dust Woman, I must  have rewound it tem times that night.

"Wake up in the morning, see your sunrise, lovers go down.
Lousy lovers pick their pray, but they'll never cry out loud...follow those who pale in your shadow."

Today, this song is still one of the highest on my list. Of course, most of Stevie's songs are. There is nothing like the Goddess of Rock and Roll! Her CDs are the only ones that have been in my car for over three years, now. That almost seems wrong. I know how to pick up the pieces and go home. I've done it so many times.