A Poetic Place

"Oh, my music makes you dance
And gives your spirit to take a chance
And I wrote some rock 'n' roll so you can move
Music fills your heart, well, that's a real fine place to start
It's from me, it's for you
It's from you, it's from me
It's a worldwide symphony..."

–Barry Manilow, I Write the Songs

26 years later and here we are...

Months earlier, I remember seeing the social media ads and thinking, That's corny.

The service is Songfinch, a platform that allows you to choose a musical artist/songwriter and then provide content and stories for the musician to write you a song and record it for you. The end result is a special song for someone special in your life. 

So cool, I thought. And corny.

I kept kicking that musical idea down the road, thinking about it, and finally realizing it was the perfect anniversary gift from me to my wife, Amy.

Because we like corny love things. Our teen daughters know we like corny love things, too. Painfully so. 

While I've never forgotten our wedding anniversary (or the anniversary of when we met, which happens to be the same date), when I decided to have a song made for Amy, I couldn't help but think about one of favorite holiday movies, The Family Man. 

There's a part where the husband/father (Nicholas Cage), forgets his anniversary with his wife/mother (Téa Leoni), and then their young daughter (Makenzie Vega) commiserates with him.

Daughter: "I should have warned you. Dad always does something really special for the anniversary."            

Dad: "Like what?"

Daughter: "One year he had a star named after her."         

Dad: "He had a star named after her? Well, that's nice, but isn't that a little... corny?"        

Daughter: "Mom liked it."

And I knew Amy would like it, too. Flowers and jewelry haven't been our thing over the years. Instead, music and travel have been. At our wedding we gave away our curated list of songs in a CD we titled "A Lifetime With Happy". It included songs from Ambrosia, Jennifer Lopez, Phoebe Snow, Train, Lionel Richie, Journey, Little River Band, and many others. 

I've written Amy poetry over the years as well, and when I decided to have a song made for her, I compiled romantic highlights, pieces of my poetry, one of my favorite Rush songs called "The Speed of Love", and other life anecdotes. The Songfinch musician I picked is named Tommy P, and within a week he had written and recorded a song for me. After a few edits, it was done. And because I've been drumming now for three years, I wanted to drum to it for Amy. I didn't play the drums on the originally recording of course, but I thought it would be fun to do so. 

It's been 26 years since we met and 20 years of marriage. Early on in our relationship we were clear with each other that either we were all in, or we weren't. All in was our choice. It wasn't without work, though, and we also always knew that sometimes it doesn't work out. We grew up with divorce, I got a divorce myself, and early on with Amy and me, we were never going to put children through that, which was why we weren't going to have them. Until we changed our minds and did.

We've been celebrating our anniversary all week, and we want our daughters to understand that whatever relationships they end up having in their lives, they had to be all in and continuously reinvest in those relationships to make them work. To be all in, you have to be whole, because if it doesn't work, then it's not the end of world (even if it feels like it, which it will). Through it all, it should always be about loving yourself first and keeping your soul whole enough to share with another. That's what we've practiced over the years, a poetic place with spiritual grounding that elevates our love. To be grateful for our love for as long as we have it. 

So, having a song produced for Amy for our anniversary might've been a little corny, but if music fills your heart, well, that's a real fine place to start. (Thank you, Mr. Manilow.)