I found a Barry Manilow album at Costco the other day – Ultimate Manilow – and I’ve been waxing sappy and nostalgic ever since. Love him. And not afraid to admit it.
Anyway.
One of the hazards of Manilow Immersion – I’m coining a new phrase and accompanying acronym (MI) – is the tendency to wax melancholic. It could go either way, but the weather, the time of year, the music, the memories. What is a girl to do.
In years past, the season dredges up memories of being poor and feeling desperate, as though financial well-being would or could solve any of the real problems in life. I’m finding that the deeper issues are internal, and immune to monetary influence.
And truly, what problems remain? There are blessings beyond measure, really. My life dreams are all realized. Motherhood. Home. Loving family. Rewarding and satisfying livelihood. I can hardly ask for more.
And yet. Melancholy pervades. Emotions swing as the sun rises and falls. Fragments of memories float through my periphery. Waiting for babies to be born, waking through all hours of the day and night to feed or pump, and the accompanying exhaustion, the sudden loss of friends and loved ones, the desperation of life’s realities not measuring up to what a holiday season should represent, a marriage that crashed and burned. Loved ones in loving and growing families having new babies of their own.
Can I somehow rise above my own inner turmoil, or at the very least, hide it from my children? What does it take, to let the sun shine in? A little less Manilow?
On the up side of the MI experience, I dance around my living room and smile from ear to ear, belting out ‘Could it Be Magic’ at the top of my lungs.
Spirit move me
Every time I’m near you
Whirling like a cyclone in my mindSweet [insert name of loved one, GG in this case, my Giant German]
Angel of my lifetime
Answer to all answers I can findBaby I love you
Come, come, come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of youBaby I want you
Now, now, now and hold on fast
Could this be the magic at last
Even better, if when my giant is here, I can put my arms around his neck and swing around my living room, looking into his eyes, singing this song. Better yet, he happily puts his arms around me and amusedly tolerates my MI. What could be better than a European man who is a child of the 70s and 80s? I can play ABBA and sing to my heart’s content. There’s probably not much that can challenge the manhood of a nearly six and a half foot tall, three hundred pound German man!
There. Bang bang. I’ve gone from melancholy to cheerful in the span of a few paragraphs. I don’t suppose it’s quite what the professors in engineering school had in mind, but the phrase (and phase) has stayed with me, through all these years, this past quarter century. Who would ever have guessed that an education in classical control theory would ever fit someone the likes of me? Yet, somehow, it does.
It’s a miracle
A true blue spectacle
A miracle come true
