It was  a moment I hadn’t had in a while, and the simple joy of it took me by surprise.

I was speeding home in the mini-van (it is NOT a mini-van, my husband says, if he is driving it) on the causeway, annoyed after a nasty visit to the Dentist. I’d been switching channels on the radio earlier, trolling for inspiring music. This new channel greeted me with a riff, starting small but building fast. I knew this…what was it? As if on cue, my inner seventeen year-old cranked the knob. This was…this was early Metallica, very decent to rock out to, if you have a shitty car and are on a road trip to visit a boy who actually doesn’t like you.

(Some things take you back, instantly. If there is a secret to time travel, it involves music from one’s past.)

“EXIT LIGHT….EnnnnTttteerr NIGHT,” I find myself grinning and singing along. Downright jamming, slapping a hand on the wheel just like a, well, seventeen year-old. Boy, probably, but whatever. Our pace slowed as the causeway jammed up in a bottle-neck.

A guy in a BMW pulled up alongside me, wearing silver shades that matched his silver suit and his shiny silver paint job. Silver Guy turned to look at me, as I banged away, windows near blowing out. I turned to him and smiled, suddenly realizing one half of my face was still frozen. Not only was I a middle-aged Mom in her finest sweatshirt, I was a drooling freak. And I was freakin’ JAMMING MAN! It took everything in me not to flash him a double-fisted metal salute. The song ended, replaced with an even louder, crunchier Pantara song. “WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I yelled to no one, turning it up to the limits of the Mazda’s stereo system. Silver Guy shot off as soon as he could get away from me.

I realized, this is the kind of energy I need on a daily basis. Think of the house cleaning I could get done, while listening to the hammering beats of Heavy Metal! Why hadn’t I thought of this before?? True, my heavy metal days had been brief and limited, but they had offered a form of musical education, and a way to talk to a fringe margin of my high school class. But If I could harness the power of metal, for myself, for my family…. the kids would rake the lawn at Mac Ten! My husband would unload the dishwasher like a one-armed drummer! We could….wait.

No, this has to be for me, and me alone. I will find and wield an ancient and dusty tape cassette, and search for a place to play it. I will only use its power when absolutely necessary. I will continue to listen to this station, to see what other treasures it unfolds, what memories might surface, burbling to the top of the cauldron. I will also remember that deep inside of me, inside the shell of the everyday normal Mom, there is a sliver of a headbanger.

And she sometimes needs to ROCK.