I remember that we had only been dating for a about a month and he took me to go visit his mother at her beautiful heritage home in Brampton. Michael was eager with excitement as he held me by my hand and took me through the front door of his mother's house, but it wasn't the thrill of visiting his mother which had him so exhilarated, rather it was the arrival of some precious packages in the mail which he had ordered through his mother's eBay account.
"These are some Cajun records I ordered", he said like a 6th grader who was just about to get a new bike.
He opened up the packaging with eager but careful excitement and laid about 3 or 4 records on the pretty country duvet cover of the guest bed of his mother's house. I recall looking at the items with interest, but with less exhilaration than Michael as I knew nothing of records or record collecting at the time or that people as interesting and eclectic as Michael existed in the world.
I remember him filling me in on the history of the records, and explaining to me that they were old, from the 1920's and 30's, and not to confuse 78's with vinyl records because there was a huge difference between the two and that how each record can be worth more depending on the artist, or the records origin, or the rarity of the record etc. While Michael went on to give me a crash course on the history of records and record collecting, I remember looking at the record label on a couple of the records splayed out on the bed and found that feminine side of me being drawn to the pretty graphic of the blue bird flying across the old faded records labels. "I've never heard of this label before" I remember telling Michael, to which he responded with more background on the history on the Blue Bird record company and how they were a well known record label back in the day...
I had no idea that when I started dating Michael that my life would go through such a transition, and that the true journey of my life would actually begin...
Almost 4 years later, we're still happily engaged and we have 19 month old identical twin boys Benjamin and Oliver, and of course we somehow still have our dog Maya and somehow we've managed to survive all the hardships of life together without letting the bitterness of life turn our hearts...and of course Michael still has his records, LOTS of records; as a matter of fact he has a whole room of them and now I can't picture myself not being surrounded by records as it's become such a part of our everyday normal life...
But for those of you reading this blog and wondering, what does this all have to do with records?
Well it started with records you see. It all started with the Blue Bird staring back from me from the record label, and imprinting itself in my permanent and long term memory, and now it's the Blue Bird that will take us on flight on another journey as a family.
We are trying to get out of the city and start a new life, a better life for ourselves and our family. We want our kids to grow up in a close knit community, and to be able to catch frogs in the creek, go on picnics, and go canoeing.
We have a dream to go to Bridgetown, Nova Scotia, and Michael is making the biggest sacrifice of all for his family - he's selling all of his top blues records so we can put a down payment on a house and relocate and start a new life, the life we were meant to live - the life that suits our family best.
I can remember the sparkle in his eyes when he was holding those records and he's easily selling them without blinking because he loves his family that much...
I'm nervous about Nova Scotia, but yet I look forward to the journey and I look forward to the flight of adventure with Michael by my side....
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