Thank you, Captain -- if that's your real name -- and Tennille, for helping me reconcile with my past. No, I'm not a huge fan, but for better or worse, your music was the background sound of my '70's experience. Your tunes ranged from the sublime, Love Will Keep Us Together, to the truly ridiculous, Muscrat Love.
So it was with campy humor that I posted on Facebook, my regrets they had split, along with a video of what is arguably their best song, The Way I Want to Touch You.
What sets that tune apart from the syrupy lyrics of their other hits, is it's implicit acknowledgment that relationships are hard; "You are sunshine. You are shadows. You are morning. You are night."
A friend responded to my Facebook video post with this; "..I have been happily married to my 2nd husband for many, many years, but I just watched this video and choked up for what was a reminder of a beautiful time in my first marriage..."
My friend, and the Captain and Tennille, made me realize that divorce often forces us to deny all that was good during our union, to dismiss the highs and accentuate the lows, to forget what for many of us, was the longest period of our adult lives.
We require that amnesia because it dampens the pain when the reality sinks in that love won't necessarily keep us together.
How mature and enlightening then to me, that my friend acknowledges a song conjures warm thoughts about life with her first husband. Because yes, I too have good memories from my first marriage that until now, I guess I didn't think I had license to recall. There were uproarious dinner parties, and storybook holiday table settings. There was laughter and love. Love that spawned 2 beautiful, conscientious, soulful progeny.
In the end, maybe there were more hard times, than good times. More darkness, than light.
And if it takes a sappy, 70's tune to remember the good, so be it. I'm glad now there are people who filled the world with silly love songs. Nothing wrong with that!