Exhale

I've been listening to 80s music this week, so just this morning I was listening to Whitney Houston and thinking, Damn, so sad what happened to her. So color me shocked when I got the news in my inbox about her death. I wasn't a supa fan, but her music punctuated enough points in my life that 'm sincerely sad she's gone.

I got into music in grade 6, and in grade 7 starting to buy a couple albums with my little allowance, and tape music off the radio (remember that?!), and slavishly watch Video Hits* when Whitney's first album came out. So I associate "You Give Good Love" and "Saving All My Love" and "How Will I Know?" with my budding musical years.



In grade 9 I experienced I big betrayal by my friends on the last day of exams, which took me the entire summer to get over. When I visited my mother that summer (she lived in another province) I slept in the room of one of her roommates and was allowed to listen to his tapes, and he had the second Whitney album. So I associate all those songs with slowly rebuilding my Inner Zip.



Fernando and I have never had "a song" but when I bought Whitney's Best Of album and heard "Your Love is My Love" for the first time, it was the first song that really captured how I felt about him. And always has. (Written, I must add, by one of my all-time fave artists Wyclef.)

If tomorrow is judgment day 
And I'm standing on the front line
And the Lord asks me what I did with my life
I will say I spent it with you




Finally, I've listened to "Exhale" consistently since it came out. It never gets old, and always means something different. I love this idea that there are times in life that we go through with clenched teeth, breath held in; but eventually, we exhale.



RIP Whitney

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* Canadian 1 hour video show. We didn't have cable, so no MTV.