Sometimes When We Touch

I'm awake in the wee hours again. This always seems to happen the night after I have one of those giant margaritas, which if they weren't so damn tasty I wouldn't so often be tempted to have one when my kids and I wander into our neighborhood salsaria for dinner after playing in the park. This time my kids and I had a dining companion, our very special guest from across the pond, someone I haven't had the pleasure of dining with in more years than the combined ages of my two kids.

And what a pleasure it is to have him, for all of us. For myself, I don't think I've laughed so hard in 18 years, and it feels really good. My kids are both really enjoying his humor and childlike approach to the world too.

After they went to bed, I went to find our visitor, who was stretched out on the couch, his bed for the night. As I laid there with him, head on his chest just like back in the day, I just tried to ride the waves of emotion, and they were some big waves... A part of me felt this profound relief, like I was finally home again. A part of me felt gratitude about this opportunity to reconnect both with him and with that younger woman I was then. A part of me felt profoundly sad as I felt myself transported back to the days at camp when we'd lie in each other's beds in our cabins, and so I let the tears come. I'm not even sure why flashing to that feels so hard, but perhaps I'll know more later in the week when we go back and visit our old camp.

Awake and contemplating all this, my inner dj spun Dan Hill's Sometimes When We Touch. It doesn't get any cheesier, I realize, and while some of the lyrics are really beautiful (at times...), some are hilariously bad (prize fighter?) -- here's a little of both for your reading pleasure:

Romance and all its strategy
Leaves me battling with my pride
But through the insecurity
Some tenderness survives
I'm just another writer
Still trapped within my truth
A hesitant prize fighter
Still trapped within my youth

And sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you til I die
Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides

At times I'd like to break you
And drive you to your knees
At times I'd like to break through
And hold you endlessly

It's also kind of fun to listen to versions of this song by Tina Turner and Rod Stewart. Myself, I prefer the pure cheese of Dan Hill, and when I read about the "intrepretation" of the song on wikipedia, I liked him even more...