Why My Life in Pink?

My Life in Pink.  So cliche, right?  Oh, she had/has breast cancer.  How cute the pink reference, blah blah blah.

I don't believe in coincidence.  I believe in fate.  I believe in "meant to be".  Some of you believe in God.  I believe in fate.  It's all the same.  Believing in something you can't see or touch, but in your soul, you know.  That is religion. Fate is my religion.

So, how did I arrive at a blog entitled My Life in Pink that isn't cliche? Fate.

I have yet to find another person that was as enamored with the TV show, How I Met Your Mother, as I was.  The writing was brilliant.  The humor was perfection.  And the long-term vision for the show was flat-out smart.  They planned the ending of a show before it started!  And banked on it being successful!  Smart.

The final season, which was highly criticized, takes place over one single weekend.  You meet "the mother" and get a lot of answers.  None of this detail is a spoiler and none of this detail has much to do with how I got to my blog My Life in Pink.   It's just a great show.  Binge it.  Then come to my house for Thanksgiving and I'll slap you. Slapsgiving. (See?  None of you get that!)

What is relevant is an episode in the final season. Ted (the main character who is looking for "the mother") winds up in a beach hotel room with a lovely balcony.  A balcony that has a private, wooden lattice barrier with the room next door.  "The mother" is in the adjoining room and distraught.  She comes to her balcony, while Ted is on his, and plays La Vie En Rose on her ukelele.  Important to note, she sings it in English.  I love this scene.  I love this rendition of a song that I don't recall ever having heard before.  I am in love with the song, scene and direction of the show.  I still watch this scene over and over on DVR.

Fast forward four and a half years, and I am in a movie theater (I NEVER go to the movies) in my current hometown on a Saturday morning with my girlfriends.  We're there to see A Star is Born, starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.  The movie had already been out for weeks, and aside from one or two other people, we were the only folks in the theater.  Mind you, the movie stayed in theaters for another three months.  Needless to say, I fell in love with this movie. IN LOVE.  The acting, the storyline, the cinematography, the soundtrack.  (Ask my husband, he's had enough of my love of this movie!!!) LOVE IT.

There is a scene early in the movie where Gaga/Ally sings La Vie en Rose, in French, at a drag bar.  It's impeccable, stunning, and pure talent.  Her rendition is distinctly different from the one in How I Met Your Mother, IF you're a music novice and moron like I am.  I faked the recorder in third grade. True story.

I cannot recall the moment I put it all together.  I was obsessed with the movie soundtrack and I play it over and over.  (Love you, honey!) And like I said,  I replay that How I Met Your Mother scene all the time.  So somewhere, months after watching the movie and replaying the TV scene, I connected the songs.  That moment in my mind was fate.  Two of my favorite cinematic moments were the same.

Ever since my first diagnosis of breast cancer, I felt I needed a tattoo.  My husband has an amazingly simple tattoo of "ohm" on his back, right shoulder. I love it. I trace it with my hand when we lie in bed.  I thought that was the tattoo I needed.  I love my husband more than life.  Only made sense to share tattoos.  I never pulled the trigger.  I'm still inkless.  Not because I don't love him.  Only because I needed my tattoo to speak to ME.

So, I'm at a wine tasting with my friends and twenty other people I don't know.  And it dawns on me...La Vie en Rose is MY tattoo.  The connection between the movie and the TV show. It was meant to be.  Fate.  I text my best friend, a graphic design artist, and this is exactly what I said:

"I need you to design a tattoo for me.  A few versions.  The words are: La Vie en Rose."

Less than a minute later, I swear on my life, my children's lives and my marriage...sitting at the wine tasting with French music in the background, I ignore the tasting and lean back in my chair to hear that hushed French music better.  You know, that face where you have a look of confusion, squinted eyes as you strain to hear something.  My friends next to me ask if I'm okay, that's how pained I looked.  But it's the unknown, wine-tasting man to my left who saw my strain and leans in to say, "It's 'La Vie en Rose'."

Fate.







Comments

  1. I miss How I met Your Mother! I did not remember the scene with her singing La Vie en Rose and just watched it again on Youtube. Loved it!
    Ann

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