Mon Amie, La Rose

Years ago, Catherine B. who was one of my roommates in graduate school in Austin, Texas, who is French and has worked in Paris for many years, sent me a cassette with North African music. I have a beautiful big, red rose in my garden that I nurse each year as I have for the past 23 years we have lived in our house. The rose has become a symbol to me of the will to thrive, to survive under trying circumstances, and I have become quite fond of it over time. On the cassette my friend sent me, there was a song that blew me away with its beauty and passion. It is called "Mon Amie, La Rose", " my friend , the rose". It is a fantastically beautiful song about this woman's love of her favorite rose, and the deep sadness she feels on the day she finds her rose dying. The song was sung both in Arabic and French by an Arabic speaking woman with an incredibly beautiful, poetic and powerful voice. The song is based on a poem, and is one of the most beautiful love songs I ever heard. I received a letter yesterday from Catherine and want to ask her if she remembers what the name of the singer is, as I really want to hear that song again. I do not speak Arabic, but I have never been so moved emotionally and aesthetically by a song and a voice. Catherine and I share an interest in North African music, and to me , whenever I listen to music of the Maghreb region, I feel a deep longing stir in me connected to a longing for freedom and dignity. I remember the first time I heard the music of the Egyptian singer Fairouz. I felt I could have listened to her all day. That was many years ago, but I can still recall the power of her voice, its range and beauty, ringing in my ears. It is fascinating to me how we can love music , be profoundly moved by it, and not understand the words or even circumstances. Maybe it is because music is the language of the soul, of emotions in ourselves, in our joy, or grief, that are so strong , we have difficulty articulating them, we can feel them, but cannot, or dare not, speak them. In that sense, listening to emotions expressed in a musical form, in a language we do not understand, or even know, can bring relief to our own emotions, as we feel a kinship with the singer through the universality of the human experience in its often confounding complexities  of both sorrow and happiness.