Mike Humfreville
Super Nomad
Posts: 1148
Registered: 8-26-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
Singing
Singing
It was late summer and we’d been living in our homemade palmfronded hut on the southern shores of Bahia de Los Angeles. We’d been married the year
before and wanted time to let the whole marriage and living together thing sink in and settle and often in the early evening we’d walk the shore
gathering shells and enjoying our two dogs Rocinante and Dulcinea and just being together forever. The evening water was usually calm and blanketed
with colors thrown to earth by the sun, setting over the tall western mountains.
Sometimes we had no need for talk and would walk just listening to the terns and gulls merging with the sounds of quiet waters. The merged sounds
seemed almost orchestrated somehow between the seabeasts and the calm sea bubbling off the worn beach stones as we walked.
Back at our hut we sat before bed and listened to music we both liked. She was singing along to the well known tune and I noticed she was
embellishing the final notes of the stanzas with a little twirl of her voice. Her singing was beautiful. I wondered about her modified ending to the
song. Personally I didn’t find the change introduced, while small and nice within itself, to be real. I voiced this to her. She said nothing.
Thirty years later we were riding together in our old Chevy, listening to music once again. We were driving through the area near Laguna Hanson and
the tall trees were stirring in the small breeze that whistled through their branches and needles. Purely by coincidence the same song was playing.
I knew something was missing from the picture the song was painting before I realized she wasn’t singing along with the recorded music. I thought
backward in our relationship and remembered the moment in our hut so many years and a across a lifetimes activities to where I’d mentioned her
personal element of style.
Over the years intervening, between my first mild criticism of her need to embellish the music and now, I had seldom heard her sing. I had not given
it serious thought until our moment in remote Baja with pine trees singing to us. It was their turn now, I guessed, and we listened appreciatively.
But, alas, it was her voice I wanted most to hear. Somehow the song was recorded in my mind with her original accompaniment. It wasn’t the same
without her unique contribution.
There was something in the moment that hurt me. I wanted to hear her voice. Maybe she sensed my want or simply felt like humming along, quietly, so
quietly I could hardly hear her. I wanted to ask her to sing louder, so I could hear more, but suddenly I realized for the first time that my
original comment to her about “embellishment” of the song had hurt her. I said nothing. For one thing I wanted more time to think about the
situation. At least that was my admission to myself. I suspect the true reason I didn’t say anything was that I was touched by the moment and my
rearview mirror vision of events, and my voice would have cracked if I’d have uttered a word. She couldn’t see the droplets of water running slowly
from my eyes as I realized the depth of embarrassment I had caused her. Now I wished only that I’d never said anything in the first place, never felt
the need to criticize. How long had she carried this weight? Since our moment in the old hut so many years back? And how many other evaluations
about her had I made, informing her as though I was somehow worthy of criticizing others, worst of all, my closest partner through life? How many
modifications had she made just to get along with such a demanding me?
There was nothing to do; I could broach the subject later and we could discuss it but the minor harm that I’d done 30 years before was still hanging
there in my mind, spinning, searching for complete truth. It was a long and dusty road back to the Bay of the Angels. We wound together down the
southern slopes of the mountains and wandered through the desert toward our new home there. There was natural singing the entire trip, from the trees
filled with breezes and an occasional hawk or raven, to the humming sounds of tires on macadam. I was reviewing our life together, she and me. How
much time had I bothered over so many years to express my appreciation of equally small things that were positive rather than negative? The singing
of the elements through which we were traveling were each unique and prefect. Everything has ways that are individual. Her voice was an expression
on what she found beautiful. Who was I to criticize?
I guess it’s not too late to change. The first part of fixing a problem, even though mild, is recognition. I recognized in the pine studded forest
that day that her singing was special and, now, deprived of it, my life would never be the same.
Maybe there’s something I can do to fix that.
|
|
|
longlegsinlapaz
Super Nomad
Posts: 1685
Registered: 11-18-2005
Location: La Paz
Member Is Offline
|
|
WOW!!!! It takes a good man to have figured that out 30 years down the road & even more so for you to have put it into words & post it! That
in & of it's self is a helluva start for making up for 30 years of her modifying herself to please you, sad it took 30 years to discover the loss!
She better be a Nomad too, to read this post! If not, print a copy & put it on her pillow!
|
|
|
FARASHA
Senior Nomad
Posts: 848
Registered: 6-3-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
Sounds like your wife LOVED YOU A LOT, and still does!!
Had tears in my eyes, after reading your story, why??
How many times I have been criticised, or have criticised others.
Most of the time just thoughtless - no hurt intended, just brainless blabbering, or making fun of the other one.
And it sticks for eternity - I know that - remember them well.
And then - to find that out after 30 years - !!
Tell you what - better after all those years and with her still alive - then to find out that you are not able to say face to face "I'm SORRY".
Makes me think !!
Taking inventory for rest of weekend !
Mike - give her a tight hug and kiss, and tell her that you miss her singing - because you LOVE her AND the singing.
Then read to her your post - she won't be able to read it herself - because she will have tears in her eyes.
|
|
|
villadelfin
Nomad
Posts: 273
Registered: 4-8-2006
Location: La Paz
Member Is Offline
Mood: toasted and buttered
|
|
beautiful
|
|
|
Santiago
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3499
Registered: 8-27-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
MH: hummmmmmm, close to home, me thinks.
By-the-way, I've given my son and his friend your account of E.Y. as required reading for our trip in a few weeks with the understanding that we may
meet up with the author.
|
|
|
djh
Senior Nomad
Posts: 936
Registered: 1-2-2005
Location: Earth mostly. Loreto, N. ID, Big Island
Member Is Offline
Mood: Mellow fellow, plays a yellow cello...
|
|
THanks, Mike !
Once again,
djh
Its all just stuff and some numbers.
A day spent sailing isn\'t deducted from one\'s life.
Peace, Love, and Music
|
|
|
jerry
Super Nomad
Posts: 1354
Registered: 10-10-2003
Location: loreto
Member Is Offline
|
|
truer words have never been said thank you for reminding me
jerry and judi
|
|
|
toneart
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4901
Registered: 7-23-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: Skeptical
|
|
Guys aren't supposed to cry, goes the cliche. Then why are there tears in my eyes? Mike, the sensitivity and insight (hindsight) in your post has
really touched me.
If only I had had the ability to get in touch with this sensitivity when I was younger, perhaps one of those good women in my life would have stuck
around. Your wife must indeed be an exceptional woman. She has endured the hurtful stuff that, all those years ago, seemed to you to be constructive
criticism. All of us have been guilty of that. Hopefully, now she will enjoy the rewards of endurance by being married to a wiser, better man who has
truly experienced a revelation. Man, the Love really shines through. Congratulations to the both of you.
I still have an eye out for a good woman, but am slow in learning how to say all the right things. I am still in need of yet another arrow in my
quiver. Would you be my Cyrano de Bergerac?
|
|
|
Paulina
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3810
Registered: 8-31-2002
Location: BCN
Member Is Offline
|
|
Mike,
In the key of C, check your U2U!
P<*)))><
\"Well behaved women rarely make history.\" Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
|
|
|
Mike Humfreville
Super Nomad
Posts: 1148
Registered: 8-26-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
Thanks for kind words. This story, while true, is meant not to single out one side or the other, rather to illustrate that the things we say can
often have a larger and longer impact than we intended. Thanks for reading. Stop by Bahia de Los Angeles for a visit.
|
|
|
Cypress
Elite Nomad
Posts: 7641
Registered: 3-12-2006
Location: on the bayou
Member Is Offline
Mood: undecided
|
|
Small things might not be that small. Thanks for the story. Bahia de Los Angeles is along the way. Thanks for the invite. Hope to see ya'll
eventually.
|
|
|
M
Nomad
Posts: 392
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: Laguna Niguel, CA.
Member Is Offline
Mood: looking for joy...
|
|
Dearest Mike...
WOW! I have read and kept all of your stories over the long years, I have also spent many many hours in deep conversation with you on many subjects
close to the heart. Many times I have just wanted to hug you for being the incredible man you are, but sometimes, I just wanted to kick your ass, in
defense of your wife and my fellow gender in general. After reading your story, I'm sitting with tears in my eyes, pure joy that you have finally
written with a genuine love, about an angel you have had all along. M.A is a wonderfull woman, please send her my love. To you also Humpy.
Hugs,
M
|
|
|
BornFisher
Super Nomad
Posts: 2103
Registered: 1-11-2005
Location: K-38 Santa Martha/Encinitas
Member Is Offline
|
|
Straight from the heart and beautiful. Amazing how you can take a moment you regretted so many years ago and turn it into such a beautiful narrative!!
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
