This post goes out to my pardner in life Andy, and the shirt is my homage to his love for cars. T-shirts have marked a couple of occasions for us – the first being the ‘Get Wicked Tonight’ shirt he wore when he met my parents way back in 2000. (In fairness to us both, he didn’t know he was meeting them at that particular moment, and I didn’t know he would be wearing that t-shirt.) Later that same fall, I had a t-shirt made that said ‘Puddin’ on it, which was his name for a hot young piece of ass, which I have always aspired to be. Being someone’s arm candy was a relatively new role for me at the time, one that I slid happily into with arrogant aplomb. Twenty-six years ago, there were deeper things at work between us, and while ‘Foxy Lady’ may be the song that Andy assigned to me at the time, this song speaks to the more poignant love that was developing between us.
I’ll always remember the song they were playing
The first time we danced and I knew
As we swayed to the music and held to each other
I fell in love with you
Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
Could you be my partner every night?
When we’re together, it feels so right
Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
How could we have known that we’d go on to be together for the next quarter of a century and counting? We couldn’t, and we didn’t, and in those early weeks every day seemed to be a breaking point day. Not necessarily in a bad way, and not always in a great way – simply in the way that the early days of any relationship are fraught… with every emotion. That’s a sign that it’s going to matter.
I’ll always remember that magic moment
When I held you close to me
As we move together, I knew forever
You’re all I’ll ever need
For all my cowboy-like independence – an independence I would insist on maintaining, sometimes to my detriment over the years – I also knew I wanted to belong to somebody, and that somebody was Andy. Back then, he had all these blue circular stickers on his CDs, and when I asked him why he said he was tired of ex boyfriends making off with his stuff, so he’d started putting these stickers on his CDs so they would know which ones were his. Somehow one of them got stuck on his wallet, and when he noticed it, he took it off and put it on my hand with a devilish smile. From that moment on, I knew my heart would belong to him.
Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
Could you be my partner every night?
When we’re together, it feels so right
Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
The crux of healthy independence and healthy dependence was the space of tension for those early months, but we worked our way through it because we knew we had something special. We also took things one day at a time rather than weighing ourselves down with arguments over never or forever. Throughout it all, a tenderness was taking place, along with a peace and calm and feeling of destiny I’d not experienced before. We were designing our own cowboy dance, forging our own partnership, and twenty-six years ago the world was a very different place – we couldn’t even get legally married back then.
This song was one of the first I learned on the piano, and it was a favorite of my Mom’s. Now it rings differently, reminding me of my husband, of all the years we have shared, of the life we have created together. Some cowboys have an independent streak that never gets broken – I knew I wanted a partner, and Andy wanted that too.
As for the fictional characters of The Fall of the Cowboy project that just began here, I’m not sure how they will fare…
Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
Could you be my partner every night?
When we’re together, it feels so right
Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?
