Music in My Life

When Papa picked us up from school on occasion, the dark, tinted windows to his little golf Honda were dark as they would legally allow in those days. The car could have easily been mistaken for a drug dealer car due to its mystique. But the fact that he blasted Pavorati so loudly that the windows shook excused his gangster car. His name was Guy and my grandmother had a horn installed in it as a present for him that went a little like this: “Guuuy-ooooooo-gah!” He’d drive up around the circle of our school to pick us up, honking the “Guuuy-ooooooo-gah” horn with his music blaring. If I didn’t love it so much, I probably would have been embarrassed. In that same car, with Opera, are some of my first memories of eating Raisinets and using Orange Crush Bonnie Bell lip balm, carsick from the smell.

I eventually developed a love for Country music and when I married, I was tormented and teased by my husband who would not allow it in his presence. Interestingly enough, when I moved out and left some of my CDs behind, he eventually returned them, saying, “I hope you don’t mind, but I burned some copies for myself.” And some of those very albums were John Denver, Alison Kraus, Nickel Creek, and Wynonna Judd. In the end, I found out our children begged for John Denver at his house. Somewhere along the way he decided he liked it too.

Now, as a single mother of two little girls, music is the center of our lives. When we’re cooking, eating dinner, painting, or if I am alone walking or working in my studio, music plays. In the car, the girls sing along. When my husband and I separated and the three of us moved numerous times over the course of that year, we consistently danced in the kitchen, no matter the kitchen. It started out with music one night during dinner and I danced a little freedom dance. The kids hopped out of their chairs, holding their yogurt spoons and we twirled and sang and bounded around the floor. Settled now in our home, we continue, especially on days that are hard for any or all of us, and more often on days we are grateful and in love.

My day is complete, no matter the challenges or triumphs, as my children look up at me with huge smiles and laughs when we dance, their eagerness and joy in seeing my happiness, freedom and peace ...