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There were plenty of reasons for me to fall in love with Adonis. He was a talented, sensual dancer and singer, and a compelling entertainer. He really broke the mold in Reggaeton music with everything, from the music he sang to the way he dressed in his black leather jackets and vests and skinny ripped pants-later, a journalist would call him "the Puerto Rican Prince" partly because of his stage presence and strong attitude much like the infamous American pop star. He was handsome, he was sexy, and he was also very funny.
I was attracted to that man I saw onstage. But I fell in love with the real Adonis, the man who laughed hysterically while riding speedboats, was determined to beat everybody in the band at video games, and wore sweatpants and socks and a baseball hat on the bus. Adonis had a huge talent and sang like an angel. But he also worked tirelessly, doing every promotional opportunity that came his way. He made fans and reporters feel like they'd been friends forever. He had a rare gift with people, because he was always true to himself with everyone he met. He trusted everyone and thought the best of most. Later, many would say that he was perhaps too trusting.
Adonis was, in a word, good. And who was I, some dumb eighteen-year old barely developing into a young woman, who still had no clear understanding on who she was as a person, to win his heart?
Unlike Adonis, I never had anyone pushing me into music. Yet, in an odd way, it was my mother's love of music that eventually led me to Adonis and the true meaning of love.
My parents were divorced by the time I was four, and my mother, my brother, and I shared a small two-bedroom apartment in Hampton, Virginia. My mother worked full-time as a payroll clerk, but we were still poor enough to need food stamps. Mama was so tired that sometimes I'd catch her crying while she washed the dishes or when she was alone in her bedroom. Sometimes she didn't eat so that my brother and I wouldn't go hungry. Still, Mama hardly complained about anything.
Music was her escape from the exhausting routines of her life, so music was always part of my life, too, like eating and breathing. We woke up every morning to her alarm clock, set to 55KTSA, a Top 40 AM radio station. In the early 1970s, disco was hot, and I loved that music as a little girl. We listened to music in the car, too, because Mama always had the radio playing when she picked us up from my grandparents' house after work.
On weekends, she'd light candles in the apartment to get it smelling good. Then she'd get on her hands and knees to clean everything. When she cleaned, the TV went off, and it was all about music. She had this really cool record collection and turned me on to classical stuff, like The Nutcracker and Peter and the Wolf. I also loved listening to story albums, where the sleeves opened like books and you could listen to the music while a narrator read the story. I never once suspected that my mother was deliberately giving me a musical education.
