”What would I do without your smart mouth?
Drawing me in and you kicking me out
You got my head spinning, no kidding, I can pin you down
What’s going on in that beautiful mind?
I’m on your magical mystery ride
And I’m so dizzy, don’t know what hit me, but I’ll be all right.
“My head’s under water but I’m breathing fine
You’re crazy, and I’m out of my mind
“Cause all of me loves all of you
Loves all your curves and edges
All your perfect imperfections
Give your all to me, I’ll give my all to you
You’re my end and my beginning
Even when I lose, I’m winning
Cause I give you all of me
And you give me all of you”
-- All of Me, John Legend Songwriters –John Legend & Toby Gad
The year before last, I read Dave Isay’s ‘Callings: A Celebration of Lives and Purposes and Passion’, and shortly thereafter ’Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project.’ Both are filled with wonderful, heartwarming, and sometimes heartbreaking stories told by people who want to share their story for various reasons, but most often, probably, to have a copy to share with their children or their grandchildren, great-children, a chance for those not alive in their lifetime to listen to them tell their story and get to know these people who make up their family.
If you’re not familiar with StoryCorps, they began by opening a booth in Grand Central Terminal in 2003, each interview session is 40 minutes long. At the end, you receive a CD of your interview, and a copy is sent to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress – with your permission.
”Many people think of their interview sessions as: If I had only forty minutes left with this person, what would I want to ask?”
With Valentine’s Day somewhat rapidly approaching and hearts and cupids adorning stores, and emails reminding you of how many days you have to shop for yet another holiday, I wanted to read another book on Love, but not necessarily romantic love, and certainly not solely about romantic love.
So, of course, this book is solely focused on romantic love, but while some of these stories include a peek at their beginnings, those early butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling, there is much more about the enduring nature of their love, what they’ve been through, endured.
Falling in love. Remembering a loved one. Finding love again, or perhaps for the first time, past the point of believing it possible. Those are the general categories these love stories fall into.
Some are sweet stories. Some are funny. Some are born of the times - one that begins with a blind group date of 3 young women and 3 young men, and the following comment when she first sees the young men ”’Look at the hick with no tie; I’ll bet I get stuck with him.’” One solo date later, another one to meet his parents, and then one more to meet hers. A week later, they were married at his parents’ home, a home filled with close to 1,000 gladiolas that his mother had cut from her garden. And their honeymoon? Funny, sweet, but mostly amazing what a memorable honeymoon you could have for the money he had in his pocket.
Another story shared of a man remembering his wife, the sign they saw that gave them the ingredients of a happy marriage, and it’s so clear how well he loved her for the ”fifty-three years, two months and five days” that they were married.
”One thing: If they ever let me in those pearly gates, I’m going to walk all over God’s heaven until I find that girl. And the first thing I’m going to do is ask her if she would marry me and do it all over again.”
For some of these, not all, there is a photograph of the person, people, telling their story, which I found to be a nice touch. In some cases it’s a husband and wife, in some it is a widow, in some it is a parent, or grandparent with an adult child.
These aren’t all happy stories, some include the passing of a loved one, but it’s very well balanced. There’s one or two where I couldn’t hold back the tears, and some that made me smile, like the one man who was married in one of the first gay marriages in Massachusetts, once it was legalized.
Out of these stories, all of these, there is one that stood out for me, a woman sharing the story of the last hours with her husband, and who, at the end of her story, said that her last memory of her husband was ”…most of all, about love.” It’s a lovely, if heartbreaking story, both their story and hers, individually, and his, as well.
As my oldest son says: The StoryCorps Project is an American Treasure. These stories are, as well.
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Definitely not a new book...
Book arrived nicely packaged but used. I did not see anything about this being a used version? Regardless, I'm excited to read these stories as I love story corps.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2018
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Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2022
Book arrived nicely packaged but used. I did not see anything about this being a used version? Regardless, I'm excited to read these stories as I love story corps.
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Matthew Brown
Exactly what it purports to be. A collection of ...
Reviewed in Canada on February 18, 2015