Ever gone on a date with someone while your leg was in a cast? I have. As I’ve mentioned before, I managed to break my leg only several weeks after arriving in Israel at age 18. During the weeks prior to my little mishap, a few friends and I met a group of young men at a (long-defunct) pub in Jerusalem. One of my friends immediately hooked up with one of the young men (immediately being an exchange of phone numbers, of course, and not a quick round of tonsil hockey that very same evening), and thus began one of the more interesting adventures of that year.
The young men we met were Armenian, and lived in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City. They told us about life in the Quarter and they invited us to parties that took place within the walls of the Quarter’s convent (the convent was essentially a complex, and many Armenians lived within its walls, resulting in creative entries and exits once the convent gates were locked each night). We snuck them into our dormitory’s second-story common room (through the porch door) after the house mother refused them entrance into the building (because they weren’t nice Jewish Israeli boys), and we even learned a few words of Armenian (which sadly escape me now).
It was at one of the aforementioned convent parties that I met Aram. He was the DJ, and I was a girl with a serious crush. I didn’t see Aram again until after I’d broken my leg. We all went downtown as a group, and believe me when I say that it’s no easy feat to get from one end of Jaffa Road to the other with a full-leg cast and crutches. Soon after that, Aram and I made plans to go to a movie, and arranged that he would pick me up at my dormitory. I was excited, and while there was some lingering concern because I didn’t know him very well, I reasoned that the cast on my leg, combined with the fact that the car only had two doors, would act as a deterrent in keeping things from going farther than I was prepared to go.
Aram picked me up in his black BMW (as I recall…), presented me with a red rose (which I keep to this day in its dried form), and then we went to see a film at the long-gone Edison Theatre. The film was “Top Gun“, and to this day, whenever I hear the song I’ve chosen for today’s 80s Music Video Sunday entry, I’m immediately transported back to that evening, twenty-one years ago, a time when Tom Cruise was just a talented young actor, and not someone prone to making an utter fool of himself on national television repeatedly. The song is Berlin‘s “Take My Breath Away“.
Take My Breath Away
Berlin
Watching every motion
In my foolish lover’s game
On this endless ocean
Finally lovers know no shame
Turning and returning
To some secret place inside
Watching in slow motion
As you turn around and say
Take my breath away
Take my breath away
Watching I keep waiting
Still anticipating love
Never hesitating
To become the fated ones
Turning and returning
To some secret place to hide
Watching in slow motion
As you turn to me and say
Take my breath away
Take my breath away
Through the hourglass I saw you
In time you slipped away
When the mirror crashed I called you
And turned to hear you say
If only for today
I am unafraid
Take my breath away
Take my breath away
Watching every motion
In this foolish lover’s game
Haunted by the notion
Somewhere there’s a love in flames
Turning and returning
To some secret place inside
Watching in slow motion
As you turn my way and say
Take my breath away
Take my breath away
well, you’ve heard my memory of this one…. 馃檪 yours is less embarrasing than my side-ponytail, crop top, lots of pink, WAY too 80’s memory!
Ech omrim “tonsil hockey”?
I love it- using a cast as protection against a potentially overeager date! So sweet that you still have the rose.
That song has special meaning for me, too, but in a very different way. The day after we saw that movie, my then-boyfriend dumped me. Still like the song, though.
Used to love this film but the site of it makes me cringe now.