Do you have any songs that define a certain period of your life?  I do.  In fact, if I think carefully about it, there is some music that has foreshadowed my entire life.  I think I might have a soundtrack to my life.  🙂

Many, many years ago I used to work at a bookstore.  I needed a job for the summer and I needed to do something while I looked for my first real job out of college.  Lucky for me, it was an Italian-based bookstore and was really beautifully arranged with really amazing photographic art books from Italy.  It made the pain of looking for other work tolerable.  I spent most of my mornings sending out resumes and following up on possible leads.  But in the afternoons, I was able to escape to the Italian bookstore that had a little extra personality and flavor.  Because of its Italian roots the staff was also required to play the music the store carried for sale.  Most of the music was Italian of course, but for some reason they also carried a lot of Cirque du Soleil.  When it was my turn to pick an album to play, I would always play Eros Ramazzotti.  Always.  On repeat.  Over and over.  I had no idea what he was saying at the time, but I kept busy at the bookstore singing along with my new friend, Eros.

Eros Ramazzotti defined 1994 for me.

So, after working a few months at the bookstore, I finally got a call back from a firm at the Chicago Board of Trade.  I started off as a runner in the financial room trading floor.  A few months later I was moved to the institutional sales desk and I was covering trading accounts.  Little did I know that my future husband was also working on that desk at that time.  We didn’t date during our time at the CBOT, but we were friends.  And one of the things I remember most, was that he and I were invited to go see Cirque du Soleil’s Allegria.  We were allowed to bring dates, but I wasn’t dating anyone at the time.  Jeff, ironically hooked me up with one of his best friends Mario, so that I wouldn’t have to go alone.  (I guess he was looking out for me even back then, LOL). And Jeff went with an ex-girlfriend.  Boo!  I remember that I knew all the words to the song Allegria, and Jeff couldn’t understand why.  Well, Italian bookstore.

Life is funny, I would have never in a million years guessed after that night, that I would end up marrying Jeff years later.  I actually believed that he still had a thing for this tall, blond ex.  And I thought I would end up with a Greek boy.  I have never been so wrong in my life…and I am so glad I was.

The story about how Jeff and I finally got ourselves together to finally date and ultimately get married is a long and protracted one and for another time.  But I will say this, many years later when we finally married, we played Eros Ramazzotti at our wedding in Rome.  And I started taking Italian lessons.  I guess that Italian bookstore had magic.

Imagine my surprise when I found out Eros Ramazzotti was coming to Chicago to play a concert. Thanks to my friend T and her friend L, who were also huge Eros Ramazzotti fans, we all planned to go together. So off to the Rosemont Theater we went on October 7, 2016 at 8pm to hear the great Italian rockstar of our youth. It was a full house and he did not disappoint. He sounded exactly how you would hope he sounded live and age only improved him.

So Friday, was a full circle moment for me.   Eros Ramazzotti’s voice, brought back many a memory and a time in my life that ultimately led to meeting one of the greatest people I know.  Eros and I sang all about it together one more time, just like I had all those years ago at the bookstore.

I guess, there is a right time and a right place for everything.  Things happen in life that don’t make sense at the time when you go through things.  I can remember being really upset about working at a bookstore when I really needed a job out of college in my field.  I can also remember wondering how hard it was to find a good guy to date.  And I can remember wanting to run away from it all and get lost in Italy.  But, looking back, it all makes sense now.  And it all happened the way it was supposed to happen.  These are the things of life.  Le cose della vita.

How about you?  What are the songs of your life?

-Kallie