The first piece of recorded music I ever owned was a 45 RPM record of Blondie’s “The Tide Is High.” When I brought it home, I took it out of its paper sleeve to reveal a black disk with a blue label. On it were embossed a tiny butterfly logo, the title of the song, and the name of the band. Careful not to scratch it, I held it by its edges, set it on the record player, and then lifted the needle onto the outside edge. Once the music began, I pranced all over our living room, sinking my toes into the shag carpet and wiggling my tiny butt to the beat. My mom and sister joined in. We waited for the repeating chorus at the end when Deborah Harry’s voice goes up as she sings the word “high” and it sounds like a hiccup. We loved that part. It was 1980, and I was six years old.

This was during the era when my mother was a single mom. I don’t recall much from that time, living in Middle River with only my older sister and my mother, before she married my stepfather and had my little sister and we moved to the suburbs. Most of my memories from that time are not set at our rowhome but at my grandmother’s house on the creek—fishing, crabbing, digging up worms, snacking on wild blackberries, and sipping honeysuckles—while my mom worked two jobs, attended Towson University at night, and maintained an active dating life. But I relish the memory of listening to that record with my mom and sister at our rowhome in Baltimore.

The time we spent living with my mother as a single parent, when it was just the three of us against the world, was a cocoon of pure love. Due to her busy life, our time with her was scarce, so we didn’t waste it by taking time to commit it to memory. We were so present that each moment with her—my lithe and confident mother with her long black hair and her floaty, Tuscan, butterfly-print dresses and sequined disco tops—existed only for itself.

That Blondie record was the first piece of music that was my own. There were thousands of records, cassettes, CDs, and mp3s to follow, but each time I hear “The Tide Is High,” it evokes not actual memories but a feeling—a peaceful, happy lightness that is the innocent, uncomplicated adoration of a six-year-old for her mom.