My mom had a black enamel jewelry box painted with Chinese-type decorations. Pagodas and such. She rarely wore jewelry from it (mostly inexpensive costume jewelry). When she did, it meant she was going out. The jewelry box played the most recognizable tune from Swan Lake.
As a small child – probably up until I could babysit my brother – I’d panic when I heard that tune. It meant babysitter. Why I didn’t like a babysitter is a mystery – I remember having fun with a few of them – but I hated it when my mom would go out. To this day that bit of Swan Lake makes me anxious.
I wrote about Rosanne yesterday because I attended a wrestling tournament at the school where she teaches and that made me think about, among other things, a singer we both liked.
Rosanne and I had a lot in common. We’d both visited England the same year, we were the same age, we both taught special ed and we both liked Harry Chapin. She, however saw him in concert – and got a kiss on the cheek. I only planned on seeing him in concert – in Chicago – the summer he died.
I probably first heard of Harry Chapin through his Cats in the Cradle which played on the radio a lot in the late 70’s. I bought his Greatest Shows Live album and remember listening to it in my first apartment.
On that album I liked a number of songs, but my favorite was probably Taxi. It told of a pair of former lovers who were briefly reunited in a taxi. He was the driver, she the passenger. The song talks about where they’d planned on being at this point in time and where they really were. I think the song was meaningful to me because of a recent breakup of mine. Thinking ahead to a point in time that if my former boyfriend and I were to meet, what we might say.
I can’t tell you what Rosanne liked about Chapin. She could have liked that song best, or another. But it was great to find a friend with whom I had some musical tastes in common. We couldn’t see Harry in concert together, so we went to see his brother Tom at the Birchmere.
I’ll let my 17 year old self write most of this one:
I’m listening to my “John Denver’s Greatest Hits” album. Leaving on a Jet Plane is playing now. It doesn’t make me cry anymore – unless I’m feeling gloomy anyhow. I usually get gloomy after hearing it though. Good God! I was mistaken. It does bring tears to my eyes.
I always thought being in love as different than I know it. I guess I had in mind being with my love – most of the time – not the other way around. And everyone calls me “lucky”. Anyone with a love so close doesn’t realize how lucky they are. But then – I am lucky – not because I am in love with an English guy – but that the person I love loves me back – and that boy / man is Jeremy.
I wrote that on March 25, 1975 – over thirty years ago. I remember (maybe it is in a journal somewhere) that I used to imagine it was Jeremy singing that song to me.
I didn’t marry Jeremy – we broke up nearly four years later after leaving on many jet planes. I don’t know if this song would make me gloomy if I heard it again. Probably not. Nostalgic perhaps, but not gloomy.
Clutch Cargo Lips 