A Love Note for Valentine’s Day

I’ve mentioned before that when I quit my job last July, Karen and I vowed that we would not let our reduced income stop us from traveling. So we keep an eye out for great airfares and when we see one of interest, we jump on it. This weekend we hit Denver for $39 each way and got a room at a pretty fun hotel (The Curtis). We figured it was an early Valentine’s Day for us since in Karen’s line of work (she’s massage therapist at a nice spa), she’ll come home on the 14th too exhausted to do much of anything.

A couple of days before this Denver trip, I took on a project that required a fairly bleak perspective: a “beautiful but melancholy song, female vocalist, about lost love, feeling lost, etc.” It was due Friday morning, but we were flying out Thursday morning. I sure didn’t want to be the jerk spouse who works the whole time we’re away together. So Tuesday I hammered out lyrics and recorded the vocals, then Wednesday between freelancing and teaching I handled the acoustic guitar parts — the things I couldn’t do on a plane or in a hotel room.

At some point that evening I asked Karen to listen to it. She’s always honest with me about what works and what doesn’t. As she listened, her expression became concerned and eventually almost tearful. She finally took off the headphones and said, “Is this about me?”

I said, “My gosh, no! It has nothing to do with you; it’s just what I had to write for this project!”

See, every relationship song I’ve written since being with Karen has been about her, except this one. And they’ve all been deliriously happy, except this one. How she could think for a moment — when she’s the source of everything beautiful…

Mixing in the Hotel at Night. Yes, that's a martini glass.

We left the next morning for Denver. I finished mixing the song in the hotel room Thursday night while she slept. And then I crawled into bed and held her and thought about how lucky I am. Pretty incredibly lucky.

Listen to “All Right”

More from our Denver trip:

Mixing in the Hotel at Night

It snowed. A lot.

Rellenos and Eggs with a side of “mini cakes.” Nothing mini about them.

Loving every minute at the Denver Art Museum

Karen shot some icicles.

Can’t be sad in a zebra Snuggie. OK, this didn’t happen in Denver, but still.