The choices we make

Driving on a back road in West Virginia this morning, with an oldies station on the radio, and suddenly Canned Heat's "On the Road Again" was playing on the speakers. It's not a song I know well, but the reason I do know it is meaningful, at least to me: it was one of the very few rock songs that my dad owned, when I was a kid. On the shelf under his record player, to the side of the large albums of concerti, symphonies, and airs, stood a few 45s. And one of those was Canned Heat.

But why, I wondered as I drove and listened, had he chosen that song in particular? Assuming that he had in fact bought the record, I tried to come up with possible explanations. Had the song somehow appealed to a momentarily latent Wanderlust? Did the evocation of a sitar remind him of his travels in south Asia? Did the melody just, well, you know?

Such questions, ultimately, can't ever be finally answered, without asking the subject. But, in a sense, they also answer themselves: who knows, ultimately, why we favor one song over another? Sure, the psychoanalysts will offer one reason, and the evolutionary psychologists another. To you, it might have been a matter of taste; to another, perhaps it was chance, or the result of a subtle advertising cue. But as each of us makes our case for a particular explanation, look at what we're really doing: we're only repeating, in a way, the same sort of unglossable choice that my dad once made. You choose a Jungian approach. He chose Canned Heat.

And Cleo? Yesterday afternoon, Cleo and I spent about 20 minutes just sitting, alone, in the car, having what might almost be called a conversation. The highlights were several, and simple. She can now reach, on her own, the overhead light. She can also turn the car on, due to the Toyota's large button-fired ignition. She's also on the verge of counting: at one point, she pointed to our car, said car, pointed to a second, nearby vehicle, said car again - and then pointed quickly to both, and said two. But my favorite moment was when I explained to her that the next morning we'd be going to a restaurant for breakfast. I told her who would be there, and what sort of a place it would be. And then I asked her what she might order. Her answer? Butter.

The choices we make define us, in part. But so, too, do the various ways in which we interpret those choices. Canned Heat, butter; an acceptance of eccentricity, elaborate theories. And there the record stood, to the side of the symphonies, the concerti, the airs.