"The Nearness of You"Feb 16 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line A movie and a song, covered by one of today's talents, can bring back memories. I hope you have some of your own, like this.
They were great parents. Both of them were skilled at it, mom more so. It's too bad they weren't more in love, or didn't have more in common. You didn't realize it when you were little. You just loved the heck out of both of them. They loved you back, and so that must have meant they loved each other. I think, though, that maybe they just liked each other and were committed to the family. As you grew older, little things told you the story. Once you figured it out, you didn't talk about it, for fear that if you said something, it would all be out in the open, and maybe they wouldn't stay married. So you just knew it, in silence. Once in awhile you'd find them doing something so uncharacteristic, it would make you wonder. That happened several times to my brother and I. I remember that they liked to play "LP's" on the hi-fi, stack them up and listen to their favorites. They liked the same music: Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Connie Francis... Every once in awhile the stack would disclose a little played song, "The Nearness of You". I think their version was by a singer named John Gary, now just a vague memory, but then a truly gifted tenor. "It's not the pale moon that excites me That thrills and delights me, Oh, no. It's just the nearness of you." There was something magical about that song. You could see it in their eyes, feel it in the spark of the air. Invariably, dad would waltz over to mom and they would dance together. DANCE TOGETHER! IN THE LIVING ROOM! WHERE THE NEIGHBORS COULD SEE, IF THE CURTAINS WERE OPEN! And it didn't seem to faze them. And suddenly those disagreements, those silences, those seeming uncaring moments fell away, and they were just two people, who, if not in love, must have been one day. I never asked. I should have. Maybe it was "their song". Maybe they just had that rhythm and glide that only happens for certain partners to certain songs. Maybe they had a pact that when they heard that song, they would dance. And we'd watch and we'd get that warm feeling that everything was all right, couldn't be better. Anyway, with no questions asked they'd both just dropped what they were doing, and danced, with no explanation. Then they'd go back to fixing the lamp, making the dinner, whatever. Until the next time. There's a scene in the Steven Spielberg movie, "Catch Me If You Can" where young Leo Dicaprio, who plays the errant teen, catches his dad dancing with his mom. There are obvious problems in the match between mom and dad (the talented Christopher Walken), but during that dance scene, it is, for them, and for him, as though they were young lovers, without the cares of the world coming between them. And that's my scene, out of my childhood. And I can almost see them again... "I need no soft lights To enchant me If you'll only grant me The right, To hold you ever so tight and to feel in the night the nearness, of you." Thank you, Norah Jones, for the beautiful cover of this old song on your "Come Away With Me", and the great memories it evoked for me.  |
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