The Love We Had Stays On My Mind

The two principle characters, Keilah and Norelle, definitely have some ghosts of past loves creeping behind them. As with Keilah and Norelle, the former relationships we have witnessed or found ourselves in, shapes all relationships that follow them.

If you were like me, between Sesame Street and Romper Room I grew up watching The Young and The Restless with my babysitter. Back then, there were no VCRs and I had often finished my activity books by 12:30 when the soaps began. By 3pm when General Hospital came on, I was faking my nap and peeking at the television through the blanket. Now granted, the soaps were not as explicit as they are now, but they would still left impressions on me. When you factor in Cinderella and Snow White, I was heading for the big set up.

Whether it was two sisters via for the same man or men running to the rescue of damsels in distress, my tender little mind began to form ideas about love. Then when I got home, the image was slanted. My mom never cascaded across the room in a flowing gown with a silver platter of food in her hand. My dad didn’t come home, sweep my mother off her feet after he chugged a glass of cognac. Most often, once we arrived home from another busy day, my mom changed from work clothes to comfortable sweats and pulled some Murray’s steak out of the freezer for dinner while my dad had just enough time to fix a sandwich and head to his second job. In between the hustle and bustle, I saw plenty of hugs and kisses and few arguments. By time I was teenager, I was looking for the Luke & Laura love experience and didn’t even realize it until I was well into my twenties.

No matter if we came from a two parent home, a single parent home or none of the above, what we saw or didn’t see will run head on with the not so subtle images society at large has given us, leaving us in some cases with a warped idea of love.

For both Keilah and Norelle the relationships of their parents became lessons in do and don’ts that followed them well into their adulthood. Whether they got right or wrong could only be determined by the course of actions these two ladies took. Each is duplicitous in their approaches with Keilah as an idealistic pessimist while Norelle was a starry eyed realist, with all the rest of the cast falling in between.

*************************more to come**********************more to come**************more to come***********************more to come********more to come