Rose Rouge
In the spring of 2001, my friend Lisa and I backpacked through Europe while studying abroad at St. Andrews University in Scotland. We found ourselves at a restaurant outside of Florence, Italy, in the town we were staying, Impruneta. La Loggetina, across from our hotel on Via Cavalleggeri, had geraniums in the windows and black wrought iron decor. Lisa and I were seated and ordered some delicious food. We were enjoying our meal when the lights went out. The music that had been playing stopped, and then started again when the power came back on. This happened several times, each time the song would start over at the beginning. Lisa remembers the young waitress with the long, wavy dark hair yelling at the cook in Italian, but serving us with a smile. “I want you to get together” the song went, over and over again. Eventually, we got through the whole song.
I didn’t know the song, but as we were leaving, we asked the bartender what music they’d been playing. He reached over to the CD player and showed us the case for an album by St. Germain. I had the song playing in my head as we traveled by train to Venice, Vienna, Bern, and then back to Paris where we had started. I want you to get together
About a month later, I was in a CD store in Glasgow, Scotland, and I found the album, Tourist, by the group St Germain. The song was called “Rose Rouge,” and it features a sample of singer Marlena Shaw, sounding a lot like Nina Simone, with a backdrop of Dave Brubek’s “Take Five” as the drum and bass loop. I grew up listening to Dave Brubek, and had even saw it as a sign that “Take Five” was playing in the admissions office of Washington College when I came for my interview. One comment for the YouTube video for “Rose Rouge” (linked below) said “If you could lock Dave Brubeck in his studio with a case of Red Bull this would be the result.” I want you to get together
Fast forward to October 2001. I was spending the first semester of my senior year of college at home, recovering after a major manic episode that led to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and left me a shell of a person. I remember going to see the movie “Serendipity” staring John Cusak and Kate Beckinsale. The song that is playing as John Cusak flies across the country is none other than “Rose Rouge.” I want you to get together
And now comes the real serendipity. My husband and I took a belated honeymoon to Italy in the summer of 2007, two years after we got married. I thought it would be fun to bring Andrew to Impruneta and stay at the same hotel, the Bellavista. Tomaso, the son of the owner of the Bellevista, was charming as ever, and swore that he remembered me from six years earlier. One of the nights we stayed there, we wandered across the street to La Loggetina for dinner. We walked in, and to my surprise, “Rose Rouge” was playing. The ownership of the restaurant had changed, but the music had not. I want you to get together
Some things never change. Some moments, some places, stay frozen in time. Stopped for a minute as the power goes out, but always beginning again, when the lights come back on. Winter comes, but there is always a spring, as Hemingway wrote. Those things that were frozen come back to life. The heart that seemed to have stopped, begins pumping again. Faster and faster with the loop of the drum and the bass. Bum bum bum bum. The driving rhythm. The soaring saxophone. I have come back to life. Put your hands together one time
I had so many bouquets of pink roses around my living room to decorate my birthday party. As they began to wilt and die, the soft petals edging into death. I remember back to my sixteenth birthday when my mom gave my a bunch of roses. I remember writing in my journal that “all my roses are dead” as a metaphor for my emotional state. I think that if I could go back and tell my younger self something, I would tell her that there is always a spring, there is always hope, and that even in dying, roses can be beautiful. I would tell her that she would find love and be loved unconditionally. Someone would bring her roses. She would come back to life. She would live.
I would live.
I am alive.
I want you to get together