A Gift of Memory
When Terence and I got married, my romantic husband presented me with a couple of very personal gifts. One was a small Hot Wheels car, a model of my dream car, and he promised me that one day he would get me a real one. (That little car has now been beat up and destroyed, its roof is missing and the paint is coming off. It disappeared for a long time-- the kids got hold of it-- but I recently discovered it during my last toy purge so it is back in its place of honor in my room. We laughed about its condition though, it's kind of a symbol for all the chaos the kids have caused in our lives.)
The second gift was a CD to play as background music while he gave me massages-- Aria 2: New Horizon by Paul Schwartz. (Did I ever tell you that part of the way that Terence won my heart was by giving me a foot massage at the first dance he ever took me to? A bit forward at that point, but my leg was hurting and man, he did a good job. My almost finished third novel has a scene where Jimmy offers Jenna a massage out of the blue, and that came right from my memory of that night with Terence.)
Anyway, we listened to this CD a lot our first year of marriage, and that first year had some serious highs and lows. We had the normal adjustment to married life-- living with a member of the opposite sex, merging finances, figuring out expectations, getting blindsided by each other's up-until-then hidden flaws, figuring out sex. We also had the hectic schedule of both of us holding down full time jobs and Terence going back to college full time. To top it off that first year we experienced two miscarriages, which took both of us through the emotional grinder. It was an interesting year.
Paul Schwartz' music became the soundtrack to all that.
The CD is now scratched and skips a lot, but fortunately I've got it on my ipod now so I can enjoy it whenever I need to. It instantly transports me back to those days. The odd thing is, now that 15 years have passed, even the bad memories are good ones. They remind me of how much Terence and I have gone through together, even while transporting me back to what it felt like to be a newlywed in the throes of that heady infatuation. (I still love Terence, but it's different now. Love seems to lose some of that early excitement but it deepens. It's stronger now but less likely to give me butterflies, if that makes sense.)
Anyway, here is a track from the album called "Addio." It's one of my favorites, something guaranteed to help me relax and put a smile on my face. Enjoy!
The second gift was a CD to play as background music while he gave me massages-- Aria 2: New Horizon by Paul Schwartz. (Did I ever tell you that part of the way that Terence won my heart was by giving me a foot massage at the first dance he ever took me to? A bit forward at that point, but my leg was hurting and man, he did a good job. My almost finished third novel has a scene where Jimmy offers Jenna a massage out of the blue, and that came right from my memory of that night with Terence.)
Anyway, we listened to this CD a lot our first year of marriage, and that first year had some serious highs and lows. We had the normal adjustment to married life-- living with a member of the opposite sex, merging finances, figuring out expectations, getting blindsided by each other's up-until-then hidden flaws, figuring out sex. We also had the hectic schedule of both of us holding down full time jobs and Terence going back to college full time. To top it off that first year we experienced two miscarriages, which took both of us through the emotional grinder. It was an interesting year.
Paul Schwartz' music became the soundtrack to all that.
The CD is now scratched and skips a lot, but fortunately I've got it on my ipod now so I can enjoy it whenever I need to. It instantly transports me back to those days. The odd thing is, now that 15 years have passed, even the bad memories are good ones. They remind me of how much Terence and I have gone through together, even while transporting me back to what it felt like to be a newlywed in the throes of that heady infatuation. (I still love Terence, but it's different now. Love seems to lose some of that early excitement but it deepens. It's stronger now but less likely to give me butterflies, if that makes sense.)
Anyway, here is a track from the album called "Addio." It's one of my favorites, something guaranteed to help me relax and put a smile on my face. Enjoy!
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