Clare Marie Celano
Girl Talk
Funny how certain things you remember from a love affair can make you feel as though you are there all over again.
I can still hear it – the music those beautiful hands played as they banged out “Thunder Road” on his piano. And, every time I hear Roy Bittan play it on Springsteen’s recording – wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I stop, I remember and I smile.
He used to say he didn’t have the “right” hands to play the piano. How wrong he was. Those hands were the perfect vehicle to act as a conduit to bring all that lies within his soul out onto the keys. And the sounds were spectacular – sometimes upbeat, sometimes melancholy, always soothing. Those beautiful hands that played that heartfelt music snatched my heart years ago and holds it captive even still.
I can experience that memory and so many others at my own choosing. A dear friend of mine calls this experience “bottling it.” This phrase aptly describes the remembrance because those moments are not gone and can continue to bring me back to a good place if I let them – and I choose to let them.
I am past the age where I will allow myself to wallow in what is no longer.
I’m working on aspiring to live by French writer Colette’s philosophy, “I love my past. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve had and I’m not sad because I have it no longer.”
Admittedly it is difficult for me not to be sad at times for what I know is no longer a part of my life.
But dwelling on sadness diminishes the joy once felt between two souls. I choose to remember the good things and keep the sad parts at bay. It works better for me.
When we’re younger, we tend to stockpile material goods. For most of us they are a tangible sign of our success, our worth, even who we are. At this point in my life, on the middle of life’s road, I’ve begun to shed many material things. I realize that I really cannot take these things with me. Instead, I choose to stockpile those things I really can take with me, at least for a long time – memories, thoughts, feelings, sounds, moments that, like the silken threads that once joined two people in relationship, now remain gently woven around my heart. I can choose to view these moments like a movie and rewind and rerun that which connected two souls together in a beautiful dance of intimacy.
The truth is no one can take these things away from me – no one – not even him.
The trick to “bottling it” is that you must truly experience the presentmoment when you’re in it. I made sure I did that this time around. I sank into it – every glance, every smile, every conversation, every laugh, every kiss, every embrace – every everything, if you know what I mean, knowing full well that each one might be the last.
Therefore, when subsequent conversations, random encounters or visits followed, they were magical bonuses I never expected. This way of thinking was a radical departure from the way I had previously perceived things.
Living and loving without expectation seems to get a bit easier or at least more doable as we mature, at least for me.
You learn by default if necessary, and relationships become less tyrannical and more purposeful. They become an acceptance of what is, which is sometimes, sadly, followed by a quieter acceptance that what once was, is no longer.
Years ago, I allowed anger to get me through a split. Anger being the brilliant disguise for fear, of course. It takes a while to figure this stuff out. Maybe acceptance comes with age. Whether I am wiser or just plain tired, I am not certain. But I know that accepting that things are what they are, is so much gentler than trying to force things into the picture we think love should look like.
You spend enough years lamenting over why things happen in love, sooner or later the “why” just doesn’t seem as important anymore. You stop forcing life, stop beating up on him and yourself, and coast on neutral, letting the universe steer for a while.
Thinking of the sweet things, the tender times, helps remind me of my capacity to love without reservation and my ability to say “Yes, I will be vulnerable to you regardless of the outcome.” And for these things I am grateful.
So, in quiet moments, I open the “bottle” that has captured the memories lining the landscape of my mind, and I still hear the sounds of that piano. I still feel passion’s touch, I still sense the tenderness of fingers that grazed my cheek, wiping away so many tears. I remember the kiss, the strong arms that embraced me, and I smile, or I cry. I feel whatever the moment was and I remember how wonderful it felt to be loved by someone like that.
I’ve never ceased to come away from my “bottling it” experience without realizing that there was indeed magic in my life and that whatever magic was there still exists inside of me.
For as we grow to become more of ourselves, we realize that the magic, much like the music, does not come from some external source, but rather from a place deep within ourselves.
And to honor that place where the magic still lives is to know, to remember and to love all over again.
Clare Marie Celano is a staff writer for Greater Media Newspapers. She can be reached at ccelano@gmnews.com.