Music and boats...

A boat in Punta del Este, Uruguay

I am very grateful that music exists.  Probably since anyone heard the wind and the sound of the waves for the first time, those sounds and others were the inspiration to create music.  It's also safe to assume that love inspired musicians early on to create something that would express their innermost feelings as they dealt with love in their lives.

Music has a way of stirring my emotions more easily than most artistic endeavors - I am able to appreciate the beauty of a painting or a sculpture but even the most beautiful works of art don't come close to what music makes me feel inside. Music is also evocative, it is able to take you back to memories that were seemingly under lock and key in the archive called "the past".

Last week I went to a live concert with a friend at The Mercury Lounge.  The Mercury Lounge is in the lower east side in New York City.  It's a very cool venue, very unassuming.  It doesn't try to be anything else than what it is - a place for live bands or solo singers to play their music.  Sometimes they are unknown artists and other times they bring very famous artists.  There are very few seats so most people stand in front of the stage for the various concerts which usually last a couple of hours.  The singer was James Vincent McMorrow.  A genius.  I'm buying his music through iTunes before the week is over.  One of the songs was about losing love...somehow, the lyrics and the music brought me back to a relationship I had a few years ago.

Peter and I were in New Zealand, traveling throughout the country and having a great time.  We had been going out for a few months and ours was definitely a relationship based on adventure.  We met in New York at the beginning of the summer and traveled almost every week-end to Cape Cod.  We went to Nantucket and to Martha's Vineyard.  We fell in love with Cape Cod but we weren't necessarily in love with each other. We loved being together but ours was a relationship in progress.

After a few months we decided to go to New Zealand and to Tahiti.  We met in New Zealand - he was assigned there for a few months after the project he ran in New York - and we traveled from Wellington to other towns.  I remember one day we decided to walk an absurd number of miles on a remote beach - I don't recall exactly how many miles we walked but we walked for one entire day.  Our relationship and our lives changed completely after that long walk.

I found out that Peter thought we could have an open relationship while he traveled all over the world on various assignments.  I knew that an open relationship would not be good for me.  I understood then and now that he needed to be free but while I wasn't ready to get engaged I also didn't want to be someone waiting for him to show up in New York as if I represented the next port of call.  I didn't know where our relationship was going  before this trip nor was I pressuring Peter to define it but that walk gave us the time and the space to talk about it.

When I heard James McMorrow sing one of his songs about losing love last night, I saw myself in the beach again, walking endlessly.  No one was in the beach except for Peter and me and maybe one or two other people at times while we kept walking.  It was the end of the fall but it was still a little chilly.  I remember there were reddish cliffs on one side and the endless beach in front of us.  The song brought me back to that moment.  It was a painful and beautiful experience at the same time.

The power of a song.  Brought back bittersweet memories.  Peter called me when he returned to New York a couple of years later but I wasn't interested in rekindling our relationship.  It was over for me.

Songs bring back a lot of memories and stir emotions for me.  Last week, one of James Vincent Morrow's songs was the catalyst for my memories of Peter in New Zealand.  I hope he's doing well and is happy...

Following is one of the two songs that reminded me of Peter,  "If I had a Boat".  Peter is a businessman who loves to sail.  Both the music and the lyrics are beyond beautiful.  All of the songs James Vincent McMorrow's played last week at The Mercury Lounge, were hauntingly beautiful.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH5NAuHjzv8