I sit in my car at the stoplight. It has been a good day. A rebuilding kinda day where I feel I am making progress these past months and moving foward – essentially moving into the area of divorce where there are more good days than bad. More good moments than bad moments.

I flip to a new radio station.

I hear a song from 1988. Songs are like smells – even more than any other senses they have the ability to catapult us back to a moment in time. It’s a fascinating phenomenon to me because neither sight nor touch has that ability to make a moment seem real again.

Now I know that I should change the station. I mean seriously all I can think to myself is, ‘Are you really going to listen to this song??’

Only I do. I can’t help myself.

“Red, red wine…” and I am transported back to the Song of Norway, a Norwegian Cruiseliner docked in New York City. It is the first day of our honeymoon. A steel band plays on the deck, while we sip cocktails and wave goodbye to crowds on the dock. I sit with a few postcards that I have purchased and write one to my mother as we pull away from the harbor towards Bermuda.

It is a short scribble, “I LOVE being married! I love you, Colleen.”

It is one of the definable moments of our honeymoon set to the music of a UB40 song originally written by Neil Diamond.

So of course, I am now in my car having a very different kind of ‘moment.’ It is the opposite of the joy filled 1988 moment where a smile crossed my face and love lived in my heart. It is a waterfall ‘moment.’ The kind where tears cross down my face and love leaves my heart.

I remember returning from our honeymoon and seeing that silly pig postcard adorning my mom’s refrigerator.

“Why did you hang that up?” I ask my mom.

“I love what you wrote on that card,” she replies. And there it stayed for years.

I never really focused on the words to this Neil Diamond song before. Over the years, it just made me happy and it was more the beat and vibe of a steel band that I remembered. Only now it is hard to not feel a sting to the words – to realize the sorrow they spoke of and that all these years later I would sadly live.

Red Red Wine
Song by Neil Diamond

Red, red wine
Go to my head
Make me forget that I
Still need her so

Red, red wine
It’s up to you
All I can do, I’ve done
But memories won’t go
No, memories won’t go

I’d have sworn that with time
Thoughts of you would leave my head
I was wrong, and I find
Just one thing makes me forget

Red, red wine
Stay close to me
Don’t let me be alone
It’s tearing apart
My blue, blue heart

I’d have sworn that with time
Thoughts of you would leave my head
I was wrong, and I find
Just one thing makes me forget

Red, red wine
Stay close to me
Don’t let me be alone
It’s tearing apart
My blue, blue heart

(photo free downloadable image from freepik.com)
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