The first time I heard the song Harvest Moon by Neil Young was around 2016. That surprises me, because the song came out in 1992 and I love Neil Young. How did this one pass me by? Of all his songs, this one is now my favorite. But every time I hear it, it hits me in the gut.
The first time I heard it, I was in a bar with a couple friends. I hadn’t been in the Seattle area for very long, and I was feeling very much like I didn’t fit in out here and never would. I was still grieving the abrupt and unexpected death of my boyfriend, and I felt extremely fragile.
On top of all that, this was a crowded venue with a live band. I only knew my two friends, but they knew pretty much everyone. I always feel marginalized in crowds, but this situation seemed to magnify those feelings.
And then the band started playing Harvest Moon, and like magic, everyone paired off and started to dance. Everyone, that is, except me and three guys across the room who weren’t looking at me at all. It was such a romantic moment. You could just feel the love. And I was all alone.
I missed my late boyfriend so much that it was a physical ache in my very core. And I felt as though I would feel this bad for the rest of my life. I had no idea how I’d survive that.
“Because I’m still in love with you, I want to see you dance again…”
I burst into tears. I retreated to the bathroom. And then I had to leave. I cried all the way home.
Now, whenever I hear Harvest Moon, I remember that night. But fortunately things have changed for me. I did find love once more. I am no longer lonely. I can’t believe that I get to be happy again. I look forward to dancing with my husband to that song someday, should the situation present itself.
But I’ll probably still have a tiny tear in my eye, even as I smile and thank my lucky stars. Music can sure evoke deep and complex emotions, can’t it?
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The View from a Drawbridge 
I wrote a comment here but it all seemed to have vanished.
I don’t see it, and I’d sure love to.
It was about how music seems to reach a part of me that not even myself can access at will. About a week, I remembered how much I loved the songs of Neil Diamond’s soundtrack from the movie The Jazz Singer. I was still very young in 1980. I was about 8 or 9. I listened to Hello Again from a YouTube link. I posted the link on my Facebook which was the last post I made on my Facebook. While listening to that song, I grieved for my sister that lost her battle to cancer in 2017. We are only a year apart in age. She was always there. I sobbed for the rest of the day. It rehashed the painful loss of my sister. I am not religious but I am spiritual and believe in the spirit world but not like religions make it out to be. My soul aches for my sister and someday I will hear her speak to me again. It will be a Hello Again moment. We never know how someone is so much a part of our lives until the universe takes a different course in our lives and in my case, it was like the rug that held me up was ripped from under me. I can’t even post, accept tags, or anything to my Facebook after posting a link to that song. I realized how much energy it touch for me to do that and how much a part of my life I was sharing from my soul and yet nobody seemed to notice or even care. I have only been using messenger and sometimes I comment on a post in groups but I have not made any effort to share my life on that social media platform since that day.
I genuinely believe that no one can fully understand the feelings except the person actually feeling them. And if you’re feeling something particularly profound, as you were, then others can seem clueless and insensitive in that experience. But I suspect most people meant no harm by it. They just don’t get it. I hope you won’t deprive the world of you as a result, ’cause you’re awesome. Hugs.