These past few years have been bumpy for me in spots.  The Experience has inspired these thoughts, dedicated to everyone I watch, both far and near.

I Know Your Pain

 

It doesn’t matter that you are rich & famous or if you are poor & lonely… If your talents are world class, or if your abilities seem dull and plain.  In one sense, we are the same.

 

Whether astrophysics is light reading, or simple instructions confuse… There is one understanding that we share.

 

Even if you’ve traveled the world, seeing wonders and cultures abroad, or have only experienced the home of your birth, we share one common experience.

 

For the rich, famous, and infamous, the drama is displayed, out for all to see and feel.  For common folk it’s much more private, but just as real.

 

Suffering comes when there is much wealth and in extreme poverty.  It comes in spite of good health as well as in malady.

 

Some pain is universally felt, experienced and common to all.  Some is unique, known only to you.  Yet, ironically, in this sense, you are unique… just like everyone else.

 

A lifetime pattern of intense people watching, coupled with a pattern of deep thought and contemplation has taught me one thing about you.  Though I don’t know the details, I know your pain.

 

You feel pain of body and anguish in soul, both for self and others.  You’ve suffered loss, endured trials and tribulations, experienced disappointment and defeat.  Fear, doubt and despair have haunted your soul.  What you are made of is tested and tried.

 

Whether glared in the media, or seen in a quite glimpse, when I see your pain, it reflects on my own.  My pain is personal, yet I’m not alone.  Seeing your pain melts my heart of stone.

Consistent with my compulsive disorder to gather and preserve anything of yesteryear, I am embarked on a project to digitize and thus preserve any old cassette tapes of my past.  I’m afraid that my last functioning cassette tape player as well as the tapes themselves are getting old like me. So I can’t pass up the chance to open the shutters of the years and wipe off the clouded window to the past.

 

Not counting my many Spanish speaking audio tutors, my collection of old audio cassette tapes amounts to a box with a little bit of everything.  Starting with over 50 in all, I didn’t see value in the few “store bought” tapes of music that I still had lying around and I was soon looking at maybe 2 dozen tapes.  If I really valued the music of the 70’s I could get much better copies from modern sources.  So now I was reading the titles of talk tapes that I had held onto over the years. Assuming that I wouldn’t be able to replace these little snippets of history, I set them aside to be transferred to an MP3 format so I could re-listen to them while out biking or jogging.

 

Now what remained were about a 6 more unmarked, unknown cassette tapes. I spot checked what might be on the first few tapes.  “Well, this side had nothing… And the other side is blank also.”  So deciding that it was just a left over blank tape from an earlier era recording project, I tossed in into the trash with the old bad recordings of 70’s music. 

 

The next tape had a date “Oct 26, 1970” penned on the side along with the title “Family Night”.  I had tried to listen to this tape once before.  The quality was so poor that I couldn’t understand what was said.  I wondered if I could some how filter out the noise, and eaves drop on my childhood past.  I put the tape in and plugged in my best earphones.  I turned the volume loud as I tried to adjust out the noise with the treble/bass controls.  The words never came clearly enough to understand, yet I did understand.  We were singing my Dad’s favorite hymn, “Love at Home”.  Then the tone and spirit of a prayer was unmistakable.  Yes, these were the family night gatherings of my childhood. 

  

The next unmarked tape seemed to be another blank.  I flipped it over to double check the B side before tossing it into the trash can.  Loud and clear, my oldest son, Joshua’s 11 year old voice came booming through.  This one was a study tape he had made when we lived in Draper, Utah and he had an egg gathering job after school.  I played the tape for all grown up Joshua and he smiled with a look of recognition in his eyes.  He explained that early in the morning, he would get up and make these study tapes of all his school work so when he was out and about, especially at work gathering eggs, he could re-play and thus multitask his studies into his other activates. 

 

There were other tapes (treasures for me to preserve) of my past. And I documented what was on each one as now I carefully listened all the way through both sides of each tape.  I was frequently pleased with a little snippet of my life’s past hidden between the many minutes of blank audio tape.

 

Just before I called the review and inventory phase of the project complete and prior to moving on to the task of transferring what I valued into the my computer’s audio files, I wondered once again about the first “blank” tape I had tossed into the trash can hours earlier.  Digging it out from the pile of trashed tapes, I put the unmarked tape back into the player and hit play.  I then busied myself with other things while the blank tape rolled through the player.  When the tape came to the end, I flipped it over and started it again. 

 

Through the 60 cycle hum typical of a poor recording of that era, I heard the newly married voices of My Beautiful Wife and myself.  Soon I had my best headphones on as the volume turned up so I could hear the words spoken.  Immediately, I spun back in time.  No Hollywood style time machine was ever as dramatic. 

 

Instantly, I was a fly on the wall (one of many flies on our old egg farm that I grew up on).  I still lived on this farm in my early married life.  This was in our 12X55 brown and white mobile home, late in the summer of 1983. My Beautiful Wife and I had just made our second big purchase together (a new car had been the first).  It was a used spinet piano that we paid $900 for.  Vallerie was seated on the piano bench in front of the black and white keys. On the piano’s music holder, her purple and green song book was spread open to a song she had learned before. She was now testing her musical talents on the new piano.  

 

As a fly on the wall, I watched as the young married “me” was still setting up the little microphone at the back of the piano.  Before the final set-up, I … I mean “he” put the microphone up to his lips and started chanting, “Vallerie is Beautiful, Vallerie is Beautiful.”  I then got a little… I mean “he” then got a little R-rated with his expressions of admiration for this love of my life. 

 

My old self, “The fly on the Wall”, cringed a little at the words coming out of this young man’s enamored mouth.  That had been the only time in our 27 years of life together that little ears wouldn’t be listening and thus guarding my bedroom talk casually around the house. 

 

Now My Beautiful Wife played the song all the way through, stopping and restarting several times through the problem areas.  At the end she sighed, and said, “Boy I play so lousy... It’s embarrassing!” 

 

Now I… I mean he, the young married me, kissed that Beautiful Woman as he prepared to go back out on the farm to finish up the day’s work.  My Beautiful Wife said, “Bye Sweet Heart.”  I was … I mean “He” was again a little bit R-rated in how he completed his good-bye before walking out the door for the last hour of work.  Before he actually left, there was one more conversation.

 

Beautiful Wife – “What time is it?  Will you be in at 6 for dinner?”

The Young Married me – “YES”

 

Beautiful Wife – “I’m going to start in 15 minutes”

 

The Young Married me – “What did you do with that egg carton” (it had small parts from a repair project in progress.)

 

Beautiful Wife – “It’s up on the counter.”

 

The Young Married me – “Hoped you didn’t throw it away.”

 

Beautiful Wife – “Nope!”

 

He then picked up the grease stained egg carton and walked back out to work.  Within a moment, the Beautiful Wife went back to her piano playing.  She played song after song. Stopping frequently at the trouble spots.  Several times she sighed in frustration at her struggles. 

 

As a fly on the wall, I just sat there and watched her play.  I had forgotten how much I loved listening to her play the piano.  At the end of her 15 minutes, she was true to her word and stood up clicked the recorder off and went into the kitchen to start dinner as I was sucked back through the time tunnel to the present.

 

This time travel experience happened to me over a week ago, but I can’t get it out of my head.  I can still hear, see, feel, and experience her emotions as she played for me 26 years ago.  I love great music and talented pianists. But no one will ever hold a candle to what it does for me when My Beautiful Wife plays the piano.  Even with the threat of being embarrassed by hearing my R-rated expressions these many years later, this one 17 ½ minute audio recording is a treasured possession.  It takes me back to a time before My Beautiful Wife could see all my faults and weaknesses.  To a time and place when I really believed I could make all her dreams come true.