There’s a story that I want to share with you today that actually has nothing to do with me as a musician or the book I want to publish, but rather it’s about my husband. I’ll explain why in a minute. This story is one that I’ve told and retold many times over the years and I like it because it’s funny, but it doesn't require me to be quick-witted (which I’m not) or come up with clever retorts (which I can’t). It's a standard piece of my oral repertoire, refined over the years and usually gets a good laugh. It goes like this: 

Before going to college, I spent nine weeks in Provo, Utah at a specialized training center where I learned the basics of the Italian language. I lived in Italy for the next 16 months serving as a missionary in five different cities spending a majority of my waking hours talking to people in Italian. After my mission, I went to college and was able to test out of two years of Italian classes and enroll directly into upper division classes. For two years, I kept up my conversational language skills as a resident of the Italian house where I was expected to speak only Italian with the other residents including our head resident who was from Torino, Italy. Overall, I was feeling pretty good about my fluency. However, it wasn’t until I sat down to watch a soccer game on TV for the first time with my husband-to-be, who had plenty to say in his native Italian to the players and coaches about the game in progress, that I realized just how limited my vocabulary actually was.

So that’s it, that’s the basic story. Sometimes I’ll phrase it slightly differently.  I’ll maybe say, “While watching this soccer game and listening to his comments, my Italian vocabulary doubled in size.” I’ll use arm gestures to add a bit of flair and drama to the story but either way, it’ll usually get a good laugh. 

My husband will likely tell you that being passionate about soccer, kind of like being born into the Catholic church or knowing how to truly appreciate good food, comes with the Italian passport. But he has another passion too - and that is music. He played in a band before we were married and can easily spend hours at a time playing the piano. It wasn’t until very recently, however, when he started encouraging me to work towards getting my children’s story published, that I realized just how important music is to him. He even told me quite candidly, not long ago, how strongly he identifies with the main character in my story and that it’s not just my story but his story too.

Has there ever been a time in your life when music helped you through a challenging time or transformed you in some way?