Our love story starts in a class room. In a dance studio in fact. Not for dance lessons. Though we did take irish dancing lessons together once, funny factoid. Anyway, our university was bursting at the seams, and I guess our class had no where else to meet. It was basically a songwriting/composition class. I believe it was actually a group lesson of sorts, where you would bring what you were working on. We were sophomores in college, hardly mature enough to be handling such matters of extreme heart spillage every week. And yet for the sake of education we were presented with the humiliating, yet sometimes rewarding task of sharing the vulnerable workings of our hearts, out in the open.
Did I mention it was in a dance studio? Meaning it had a whole wall of mirrors. Anyway so you would sit there, in front of the mirror. STARING. Staring at yourself, or staring at others (or pretending not to) as you listened to the sharing of songs. It was actually quite cool, maybe not the awkward staring, but the sharing was really helpful. I mean it sounds pretty embarrassing and I guess it was in some ways. However, the room was filled with the electricity of budding creativity. Creativity that for the most part had yet to be fizzed out with the ways of the world or the realities of a pay check. Creativity that was pure, new, and fresh.
The professor was an adjunct professor. Which means he was not overly “educational” or stuffy. He was often late and kind of weird. But overall he was a pretty happy guy and created a nice safe environment for sharing. I remember four distinct students from that class. Two girl friends who were very near and dear to me. Gals that I am not close to now, but I believe we would probably just about pick up where we left off, due to the nature of that raw season of life that we shared.
However there were the two other people in that class that would change the course of what happened next in my college years and beyond. Two boys.
Ah yes…
