My friend Diana, or “Di” as her friends so affectionately call her, approached me yesterday about writing a guest blog for my site. Within 20 minutes, her email magically pinged into my Inbox, and there before me was a beautiful blog post about our friendship. Through misty eyes, I am sharing her post with all of you today, and boy am I lucky to have her in my life. Thank you, Di, for the gift of your words that touch me so. I am honored and humbled. Without further ado, here is blog post #1075 – “Sing.”
I met one of my closest friends back on a university trip to Paris. It had been a dream of mine to go to Paris and I finally got a chance to go for a 6 week summer program. Most of the students came from my own university but there was a girl in the group from Ithaca who was there as well. On the first day of our classes, we all took a coffee break together, as we poured over our lists of things to see and the old “Pariscope”, where Parisians used to find out what was going on in town, before the internet existed. Someone saw the Bee Gees were playing and the girl from Ithaca and I both said, at the same time, “cool let’s go!”.And that is how Julie, your Tucson Songstress, and I became fast friends. We had such a great time during that trip, randomly breaking out into “You say tomato, I say tomAHto…” as we strolled down Paris streets, without a care as to whether or not people knew we were strange tourists, or sharing a secret love for show tunes. I admired Julie’s singing voice so much, and as a former tween fan of the TV show “Fame”, I thought it was so cool that she had gone to a high school for the arts.
Julie, aka “The Tucson Songstress,” and her friend, Diana, during their college years. This photo was taken in Tucson at the Bay Horse Tavern.
One day, as we sat by the fountain at the Jardin de Luxembourg, I asked her if it was annoying to sing with people who don’t sing very well, i.e. ME! And she said that if you sing from your heart, it is always beautiful. And I totally agree. And I’m grateful because I love to sing all the time, much to the chagrin of my son.
I am so happy that Julie married a man who loves music as much as she does, that her children are growing up in such a musical home, and that her work gives her the opportunity to have music in her life every day. And I’m happy that we have stayed close friends after so many years.
My song today is “Sing” by Travis, because I always think of Julie and what she said to me at Jardin de Luxembourg when I hear the line, “…for the love you bring don’t mean a thing, unless you sing, sing, sing, sing….” . I often imagine it is the theme of Julie’s home. And I think it’s a great philosophy for life.
Diana Tramontano is a single American mom living in Paris and working her butt off. She is an avid knitter and a punk rock music listener with several pairs of Doc Martins and classic dresses in her closet.
