The Love of My Life

“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”

Paulo Coelho

When I was a teenager, I loved The Allman Brothers Band. So, when I heard they were playing the Greek years later, I rushed out and got a couple of tickets. I figured I would go with my buddy David Graham, who was also a big fan.

Then I met the love of my life, though I didn’t know it at the time, and thought I would take her. She had never heard of the Allman Brothers but said she would go. It was our second date.

When we got to the Greek, the band was already on. We opened the curtain, and all we saw was the audience, a sea of headbangers going wild. The music was deafening. And that’s when I remembered Liz mentioning on our first date how much she liked Simon and Garfunkel.

Amazingly, we survived that experience and kept seeing each other. And in the back of my mind, I still hoped to convert Liz to liking the Allman Brothers.

Then one night, at a party at my sister’s house, I saw my opportunity. We were talking with Mason Buck, a friend of ours who reviewed books for The New York Times. Liz and I majored in English, so we were really enjoying the conversation. There was music playing in the background, and I slipped away for a moment and put on “Blue Sky,” one of the Allman Brothers’ best songs, and returned.

I waited, thinking that at any moment Liz would say, “Wow! This is beautiful, who is this?” And at last, she did turn and say, with quite a lot of feeling, “Is this the longest song you’ve ever heard?”

And I realized two things: I don’t need to make everyone like everything I like, and how very happy I was that Liz liked me.

-Hank

2 Comments

Joel Canterberry on October 17, 2015 at 6:23 pm

Dearest Hank,
Your candid sharing of tender and precious memories like this Allman Brothers band story really took me back to some of times in my life when I did the same things or practiced the “To love me is to like every nuance of my life as well”. I mean after all it is only inherently obvious that my likes and dislikes compose the amazingly well tuned highly loveable and talented genius prodigy that I am? Right…uh…right?…Hello?…hello? Is this mic working? Are you still there? Anybody?
And so it went, along, with her and most every one that I had a close or intimate relationship with. As you shared in your post, I don’t have to make or expect anyone I like or love to like the things that I feel adamently convinced make up: the very things that compose the terrifically wonderful man I am That is quite a demanding egotistical expectation with some unsettling and unsettled abandonment issues in the mix in my case.
It reminds me of a simular experience experience I had with a very a dear, kind, patient, and devoted love of my life I met in jr. high school in choir class we dated off and on until well after college. Marianne is the most “all in” team player I have had the blesseed opportunity to love and to be be loved by, l am very sure her kind and spiritually guided husband would convey simular feelings.
Now, the experience I will share somewhat mirrors the anecdotel musicical taste experience that Hank shared. Just to be sure I am also an ardent fan of the Allman Brothers but my opifany involed a pretty much ridiculous group. I had been taken in by the 80’s wave of British techno groups and became obsessed with group called OMD or better known as, Orchestral Movements in the Dark, just another group of the month in the new MTV generation. I had heard they were to play at the Roxy on Sunset bld right next the famous Rainbow. I managed to get two tickets and excitedly shared my aquisistion with Marianne who in her kind gental way feigned her interest, I believe I made a cassette for her car to get her “up to speed”…to my helpful little case of selfish oblivion.
The night of the concert we go out to dinner somewhere in Hollywood then make our way up to Sunset to the venue, I am reved up, and just know she is as well…we enter the somewhat small intimate club with low open view cielings all painted black air conditoner ducts and all, it is dark there is no seating just a sardined packed group of sweating fans, no place to put your personal belongings, so my dear Marianne is being a good sport with her purse on her shoulder waiting for my current group of the month musicians to take the stage, the show was three muscians dressed in a sort of GQ/punk attire behind three keyboards. I can describe the show as one where you could only dance or groove where you stood, absolutely miserable, but we endured. I left with Dear Marianne not so much smiling. I was walking to the car with my head hanging low, we got in the car I was humbled to apology, which she handled gracefully.
These experiences do bring us to discover people you love intimately or otherwise, do not have to love the things you love to have a succesful relationship. Its something that you work on day by day, remembering it is progress not perfection. I am grateful that today with daily awareness and the wisdom we share with one another, lets you know you are not alone and do not have to waste time fretting the small stuff, that once was pretty epic. The one thing I remember “Life is good when I get my ego out of the way.”

Hank on October 19, 2015 at 7:16 pm

Hey Joel,
Thanks for your heartfelt response to my story. You probably made that evening fun anyway with your great sense of humor. And you remind me of another story. At my thirtieth birthday party, “The Further on up the Road Thang,” my cousin’s wife thought you were so funny she asked me if I had hired you to entertain.
Thanks for being a great friend,

Hank

Joel Canterberry on October 17, 2015 at 6:23 pm

Dearest Hank,
Your candid sharing of tender and precious memories like this Allman Brothers band story really took me back to some of times in my life when I did the same things or practiced the “To love me is to like every nuance of my life as well”. I mean after all it is only inherently obvious that my likes and dislikes compose the amazingly well tuned highly loveable and talented genius prodigy that I am? Right…uh…right?…Hello?…hello? Is this mic working? Are you still there? Anybody?
And so it went, along, with her and most every one that I had a close or intimate relationship with. As you shared in your post, I don’t have to make or expect anyone I like or love to like the things that I feel adamently convinced make up: the very things that compose the terrifically wonderful man I am That is quite a demanding egotistical expectation with some unsettling and unsettled abandonment issues in the mix in my case.
It reminds me of a simular experience experience I had with a very a dear, kind, patient, and devoted love of my life I met in jr. high school in choir class we dated off and on until well after college. Marianne is the most “all in” team player I have had the blesseed opportunity to love and to be be loved by, l am very sure her kind and spiritually guided husband would convey simular feelings.
Now, the experience I will share somewhat mirrors the anecdotel musicical taste experience that Hank shared. Just to be sure I am also an ardent fan of the Allman Brothers but my opifany involed a pretty much ridiculous group. I had been taken in by the 80’s wave of British techno groups and became obsessed with group called OMD or better known as, Orchestral Movements in the Dark, just another group of the month in the new MTV generation. I had heard they were to play at the Roxy on Sunset bld right next the famous Rainbow. I managed to get two tickets and excitedly shared my aquisistion with Marianne who in her kind gental way feigned her interest, I believe I made a cassette for her car to get her “up to speed”…to my helpful little case of selfish oblivion.
The night of the concert we go out to dinner somewhere in Hollywood then make our way up to Sunset to the venue, I am reved up, and just know she is as well…we enter the somewhat small intimate club with low open view cielings all painted black air conditoner ducts and all, it is dark there is no seating just a sardined packed group of sweating fans, no place to put your personal belongings, so my dear Marianne is being a good sport with her purse on her shoulder waiting for my current group of the month musicians to take the stage, the show was three muscians dressed in a sort of GQ/punk attire behind three keyboards. I can describe the show as one where you could only dance or groove where you stood, absolutely miserable, but we endured. I left with Dear Marianne not so much smiling. I was walking to the car with my head hanging low, we got in the car I was humbled to apology, which she handled gracefully.
These experiences do bring us to discover people you love intimately or otherwise, do not have to love the things you love to have a succesful relationship. Its something that you work on day by day, remembering it is progress not perfection. I am grateful that today with daily awareness and the wisdom we share with one another, lets you know you are not alone and do not have to waste time fretting the small stuff, that once was pretty epic. The one thing I remember “Life is good when I get my ego out of the way.”
Hank on October 19, 2015 at 7:16 pm

Hey Joel,
Thanks for your heartfelt response to my story. You probably made that evening fun anyway with your great sense of humor. And you remind me of another story. At my thirtieth birthday party, “The Further on up the Road Thang,” my cousin’s wife thought you were so funny she asked me if I had hired you to entertain.
Thanks for being a great friend,

Hank

The Love of My Life