I’m at the airport, leaving for home after having attended an excellent conference for freethinkers (non-believers, skeptics, atheists, agnostics, etc.).
About 45-minutes ago, when I was going through TSA and they were checking my bag, I small-talked with a woman. Her eyeglasses were cool, and I told her that. They were similar to the ones I used to wear - the sort of chunky cat eye shaped ones. I showed her my ID photo, where I’m wearing them.
We chatted a little more about bags being inspected by TSA (as one does when one is waiting for one’s bag to be inspected by TSA). Somehow, my musical ESP came up. I said, “Sometimes I think of a song, and it’ll play later.” She kind of alluded to energy and the unknown. I was distracted momentarily by the TSA agent. When I turned back to the lady, I told her, “It happens all the time. It’s weird. I don’t know what to think about it.”
I jokingly continued, “It never happens when I think of money, though!”
She said, “That’s because you’re closing yourself off. You’re blocking it. Start thinking that you deserve that shit because you’re a good person, and it’ll come to you. You’ll see.”
She told me something higher is at play - angels coming to me.
When I was telling her about it, I thought of the first musical ESP moment that really kicked all this off. I woke up one morning humming I Just Called To Say ‘I Love You’ by Stevie Wonder. Couldn’t really get it out of my head, so I just kept humming it. No big whoop there.
Later that day, I was at the dentist’s office. I was sitting in the long chair, my legs stretched out in front of me and the hygienist’s station behind me. The hygienist stepped away, and the radio station started playing that song. It started playing I Just Called To Say ‘I Love You’ by Stevie Wonder.
“Well, that’s weird,” I thought to myself. I mean, really. What an unusual thing to happen. That song wasn’t and isn’t exactly on heavy rotation, is it? Strange that out of all the songs I’ve ever heard in my life, I woke up humming that one and then actually heard it later that same day.
I didn’t tell the woman at the airport those details, but I Just Called To Say ‘I Love You’ by Stevie Wonder. was definitely present while we were talking.
Now I’m sitting at the gate, typing this out, where music is playing through the speakers in between airplane attendant announcements. Gate B5 and B6, both departures running on time. Guess what song started playing, compelling me to write this.
Go on, take a real wild guess.
It wasn’t Beyoncé.
It wasn’t The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
And it wasn’t Chaka Khan, y’all.
It was fucking I Just Called To Say ‘I Love You’ by Stevie Wonder..
I laughed out loud, the way I do more and more when this happens. For a while it really scared me because let’s be honest, it’s freaky. A song comes to me in my head, and later - maybe that day, maybe that week - it’ll visit again, but for real this time. And it’s not like I’m listening to Top 40 shit. It’s usually a song that might not be entirely obscure, but is obscure enough that I notice it.
Once it happened with Jane Siberry. Jane Siberry is generally not a household name, right? I listened to her in the morning, sitting outside next to Husband on the porch. We were having our coffee, the day still new. A couple of hours later, I got a text message from my best friend. We text almost every day, and often share music or talk about music and musicians. This particular text message, sent without additional comment, was a link to a live version of “Calling All Angels” by k.d. lang and, you guessed it, Jane fucking Siberry.
Not too long ago on a Sunday, Husband was listening to Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” while he was in the bathroom getting showered and ready for work. I was in the bedroom, and heard him play it. Later that day, it played at the salon while I was getting my bi-weekly Sunday haircut. I almost fell out of my chair and told my stylist all about it.
On a September Saturday, I listened to Sheena Easton, as her new release “The Definitive 12” Singles, 1983-1987” showed up in Apple Music. I must’ve listed to “Strut (Dance Mix)” like five times and “Eternity (Shep Pettibone Mix)” just as much. At 12:36 p.m., I sent my best friend the link to “Sugar Walls (Dance Mix)” because of a little inside joke, which I think he has forgotten about. He used to complain that his mother would play and sing along to “Sugar Walls” and he would get grossed out by the idea of her ‘sugar walls’ and frankly I didn’t blame him. The next day, at 7:47 p.m., whatever Husband and I were watching on TV mentioned Sheena Easton.
In 2025, how often do you think Sheena Easton appears to someone on two consecutive days?
Infrequently. So infrequently, I bet, that it basically never happens.
Except it did.
I’m wearing a yellow Freedom From Religion Foundation t-shirt right now that has “Nobody died for my sins” on it in blue lettering. The brown ball cap I’m wearing reads, “Atheist” in red script lettering. I told the lady in the airport, “I’m an atheist, but y’know, I kinda believe in angels.”
I have a feeling my cool Aunt Cathie might have something to do with it all. She remains a huge influence on me and my eclectic tastes. She turned me on to so much music and culture that I think of her almost every day. Prince. Queen. ZZ Top. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. She saw me and accepted me for the kid I was, certainly seeing the homosexual writing on the wall before I understood it.
She died, my mother told me on the phone about ten years ago, two days after my birthday. She had a long fight with Muscular Dystrophy. She was a Catholic. I remember going to a church service with her around Easter one year. I appreciated it, and actually admired the ritualistic components of it.
The last time I spoke with her, I must’ve been around 17 or 18 years old. I remember getting a greeting card from her some time after that. We never saw or talked to each other after that. Learning that she died really hurt. Even though we had all those years since we’d connected, I cried when Mom told me she died. She was the first real loss I’d suffered as an adult.
It feels incongruent as an atheist to say I believe in angels. I definitely don’t believe in artistic depictions of floating humans wearing feathered costume wings. But sometimes I do see an angel with my naked eye. Case in point: Dolly Parton, I will say no more. And maybe, in the same way butterflies can see millions ofd colors that we can’t, other angles exist outside of our senses. Suppose some of our stardust essence lingers when our bodily machines give out, moving through planes and galaxies and time. Maybe some of that essence can comfort us when we need comfort.
These “musical ESP” moments happen a lot to me. And they are honestly eerie and uncanny sometimes. But I’m going to try and welcome these moments. I’ll imagine them as a visit from a stardust speck made up of cool Aunt Cathie’s coolness.
I miss her. I wish we could have talked to each other. I wish I could have called to say goodbye back then. Maybe she does too. Maybe now, though, instead of calling to say goodbye, she’s reaching out through music, calling to say hello.
Maybe she’s riding a Stevie Wonder sound wave frequency, call to say how much she cares.
Maybe, from time to time, she just calls to say ‘I love you’.
