by Shania Twain
I wondered what my hometown people must think of this event, of me. Were they there as genuine fans, did they even listen to my music, or were they there because they were curious to see me again in person after all this time, like you might feel at a reunion? Did they find it novel that one of their own actually made it to the big time, or were they just taking advantage of a day at the park because something was going on? I didn’t really know what to expect from my hometown, and I supposed what they were thinking and their reasons for being there that day were probably a bit of all of the above. My own friends and family were proud of my success and were there to enjoy the moment along with me. Overall, the feeling from the crowd was one of support and enthusiasm. For me it was a walk down memory lane and a way I could get some perspective on where I’d come to in my life, by connecting to where I’d come from.
From Timmins, we flew to Glasgow, Scotland, for the first of four shows in the United Kingdom. Nineteen ninety-nine was to mark Come On Over’s breakthrough in Europe.
But before heading to Europe, I’d sent Dancer to Switzerland, where our château was now complete, and we’d moved in and settled once and for all in our Swiss home. The night before I had to leave, Dancer was frolicking out in the paddock with the other horses and got kicked in the knee. It was hard to tell the extent of the damage that night, as he had to be brought to a clinic for X-rays. I didn’t feel good about leaving Dancer but had to fly out for the next show.
A couple of days later, I got a call from Mutt that would break my heart in two. It was late morning, not long before sound check. “Dancer is gone,” my husband told me. Nothing could be done to save the knee, which had shattered completely, and given that Dancer was pushing fifteen years old, the vet felt that there was no other choice but to put him down. I was out of my mind with anguish. How could the vet kill Dancer? Why didn’t he speak to me first to at least explain before he took the liberty of killing my prince, my beloved friend? A rush of anger and grief overtook me. I’d lost my beautiful boy.
I felt empty and lonely after the news about Dancer. I already had such a small circle of comfort in my bubble as it was, and losing him at that moment was like losing a limb. I’d lost a part of me like someone had just hacked off my arm. Just a brutal attack on my being, and it left me feeling like there was less of me, less of everything at that point. I was now even more lonely, more insecure, more unhappy. I was numb for days after the news of Dancer’s death and went through my shows on automatic pilot in my sadness. I would never get over the loss of Dancer and still miss him so much.
We were now in our last three weeks of the Come On Over (and Over and Over) tour, which ended just before Christmas in West Palm Beach, Florida. I learned everything I needed to know about being an international artist on tour at this point, and I learned more about being lonely, tired, isolated, and creatively uninspired than anything. I didn’t do any songwriting, and as my closest friend was my horse, it speaks volumes of where my personal life was at. And now even he was gone. Despite all this, it was one of the biggest concert tours of 1998 and 1999. Meanwhile, the album showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, during Christmas week, Come On Over sold 355,000 copies, more than in any week since its release two-plus years before. The CD would hit worldwide sales of thirty-nine million.
While I acknowledge this is all something to be proud of, breaking records is not why I got into music. This is an art form, not a sport like hockey, where someone’s always gunning, say, for Wayne Gretzky’s record for most goals in a single season. As much as I love performing and singing to large audiences, the biggest thrill for me is as a songwriter. Those outrageous numbers containing all those zeros sprang from a simple song composed on an acoustic guitar. It didn’t even have words or a title at first.
To this day, how a song is written remains a mysterious, elusive process, which is part of what makes it so rewarding. Every writer has individual approaches, reasons, inspirations behind each one. Songs are like fingerprints, they are one-of-a-kind creations. What the songs mean to the listener is also extremely unique to each one. One mother told me that her favorite song was “From This Moment On” because it was the song she played while giving birth to her son. Another mother wrote to tell me that my music will live forever for her, as it was the music requested by her child to play during his funeral, so it would bring cheer to those around him rather than sorrow. Although not my thinking when I wrote the song, I believe like any song, it belongs to whoever claims it, and its purpose becomes whatever it means to that individual.
Okay. Now you finish the song, polish it, and record it to the best of your ability. Eventually you have a whole litter of songs, and you send them out into the world, never really knowing what effect they will have. They excite you and are fraught with meaning for you, but will anybody else hear it? When you receive validation that the feelings you put into words connected in some way with other human beings around the world … whoa! It doesn’t always have to be that profound, either. For every couple who has adopted “From This Moment On” as “their” song, there’s someone who likes “Rock This Country” just because it’s fun and catchy. Other listeners couldn’t even tell you why they like a particular song. They just know it moves them when it comes on the radio. That’s enough.
At the end of the Come On Over tour, Bo Derek invited me to go along on a weeklong horse trip to Spain and Portugal with her and a few of her girlfriends: actresses Daryl Hannah and Tatjana Patitz; Diandra Douglas, Michael Douglas’s wife at the time; and Shekar, a Turkish princess. It was quite a crowd, and although I didn’t feel I fit in with the likes of all these regal beauties, I went along to admire my favorites of all God’s creatures as a present to myself after a good three years of dedicated work on Come On Over. All the radio and television promotions of every single; video productions; endless hours of editing; photo shoots; interviews; songwriting; recording; and right to the end of the tour, I felt I deserved it. Spain and Portugal pride themselves on their magnificent horses, and we’d be visiting the most noted breeders in the region. Maybe, I thought, I would find a new Andalusian.
Despite all the stunning horses I saw and rode on the trip, my heart wasn’t in it. To me, no other horse could live up to my Dancer. I just wasn’t ready for a new one yet.
While in Portugal, we watched a game of horseball, which is like a cross between polo, rugby, and basketball. It’s played on horseback, naturally, by two teams of four. The object is to score a goal by hurling a ball into the opposing team’s hoop-shaped net. Sounds tame enough, except that we have not gotten to the rugby element yet.
As a team gallops across the field toward the goal, its players must pass the ball back and forth. The ball, about the size of a soccer ball, has a leather, ropelike netting around it for handling easily with the fingers. It was explained to me that originally, this game was played with a human head, and the hair was what one grabbed on to with the fingers. The defending team tries to prevent their opponents from scoring, either by blocking the shot, or wresting the ball out of another player’s hands, or using their horses to push rival players’ horses off course. There is more to it than that, but you get the basic idea. It’s fast, furious, and physical. The sport is said to have originated in Argentina during the eighteenth century and at one point had to be outlawed because too many participants died playing it.
Maybe it’s the hockey fan in me, but I found horseball thrilling to watch. At the end of the trip, when Bo and the other girls went back to their lives, I had an open week for a change and decided to stay on to learn how to play. It was the first time in a year and a half that I didn’t have a manager, an assistant, or security with me. To be in a foreign country, not speaking any Spanish, with total strangers, was really stepping out for me. And it turned out to be exactly what I needed in order to get back in touch with myself: do something spontaneous and completely unrelated to my professional life. I always enjoyed athletic challenges, and horseball was physically demandi
ng enough to qualify for that.
Let me tell you, I had the time of my life. My body ached from the physical strain inflicted upon it; every morning, I woke up so stiff that I was ready to limp to the telephone and cancel going to practice. But once I coaxed my legs into the shower, my determination flickered to life, and I was ready to rumble. By the end of the week, I was hooked. My fingers were taped for support, as they were strained and bruised, and my thumb was actually sprained, but once I was warmed up the excitement and adrenaline of the game masked the pains. After the hardest working period of my career, beyond a success I could ever have imagined, and the loss of my beloved Dancer, I was going to enjoy spoiling myself by basking in the pleasure of doing something self-indulgent and rejuvenating. Even if it hurt a little.
25
Home at Last
We welcomed the new millennium from our new home in our new country. And, unlike at our previous place in upstate New York, I would actually get to feel as if I belonged here, because after five years of almost incessant traveling, my calendar was clear. It took until I was almost thirty-five, but finally I could feel settled in one place.
And what a place. I’ll start with the house, the elegant Swiss, French-style château I started telling you about earlier. It was perched atop an imposing hill overlooking Lake Geneva and the French and Swiss Alps. A designated historical landmark, it had been an art school in recent years, and although the mansion and grounds were in decent shape, they required extensive work to convert this magnificent building back into a home. Practically every room had something that needed fixing, such as repairs to walls, doors, rewiring, and plumbing. All the sinks, showers, and toilets had to be replaced, too.
Plus, it needed a new kitchen. Make that a kitchen, period. It didn’t have one; it must have been removed instead of refurbished, as art schools needed classes, not kitchens, after all. I never knew where the original kitchen would have been, but I believe it was probably in the basement, as most noble families did not cook for themselves but rather had staff cook, who worked in a discreet area in the building. I decided that the kitchen needed to be at the heart of the house, a central location where everyone could congregate together easily from anywhere in the home.
Having never had a permanent home of my own before, I enjoyed the novelty of building the nest where Mutt and I would live and love happily ever after. It was like a fairy tale. During the last several months of the tour, you would find me studying blueprints and floor plans, surrounded by decorating books and piles of fabric swatches. Thankfully, much of the structure’s original materials had been preserved, such as the detailed parquet flooring throughout, and the various stone and marble staircases, pillars, and fireplaces. Handsome French oak panels made from trees no longer in existence lined the high-ceilinged living room, and the whole house still had its original door and window frames, also made of oak with the original brass handles.
After visiting Versailles and learning to appreciate the different periods of architecture and design during my international travel, just out of interest’s sake I started to take more detailed note of the materials, lighting fixtures, fabrics, colors, and shapes. I was especially drawn to the Renaissance period when Versailles was built. I wanted to put our own imprint on the centuries-old château—make it cozy and homey—yet keep the decor in its original period style. My feeling was, you just don’t tamper with an architectural jewel such as this. We chose mostly classic French fabrics in the style of the 1700s and 1800s, which went back to the days when Marie Antoinette still had her head. The carved wood frames evoked a palace tearoom setting, only with furniture in larger scale and more comfortable and lofty than the originals. I’d ordered brass fireplace screens custom designed from the original molds of Versailles, while the floors were graced with Renaissance-style Savonnerie and Aubusson rugs, some of which were antiques in their own right but from the period. Crystal chandeliers, antique alabaster and ceramic lamps, and several antique bronze sculptures completed the look. It was all very palatial, lush, and fit for a princess. I learned as I went, leafing through Renaissance and Baroque design books and browsing European antiques markets to try to do justice to the already beautiful palate of the naked house. Given my humble beginnings, at times I did feel a bit like Cinderella at the ball. Am I really going to live here?
My favorite rooms were the kitchen and the bedroom that would become my son’s room. The stove, a radiant-heat Aga made of cast iron, was a stunning piece of art in itself, finished in French vanilla enamel, with brass and black fittings. Without my having to go on tour anytime soon, it would receive quite a workout.
Mutt, meanwhile, being the passionate landscape designer that he was, completely transformed the garden. We had several hundred different varieties of roses everywhere; they poured out of the flower beds to cling to the trellised walls and the balconies that offered a panoramic view over the lake and mountains. You’ve never seen a more dramatic landscape: steep, snowcapped mountains plunging down to meet the lake, which is fed by the alpine glaciers, making it crystal clear.
Throughout the plateaus and valleys in the region lay farm country. Swiss farms are like no other farms. They are neat and tidy, like the farms depicted in children’s books: wood chalet-style barns and houses with roofs made from cedar shake or stone-tiled roofs. The windows have colorful, blooming window boxes, bursting with buds that cascade over the edges like floral fountains. Every windowpane has delicate and intricate hand-crocheted curtains gracing it and water troughs overflowing with gushing glacier-fed streams. All buildings are perfect, compact, and so well maintained. Smurfville comes to mind for me. It’s like a million Smurfs must live in these handsome hamlets to keep everything so perfect and pristine. It’s as though your eyes are looking through high-definition lenses exaggerating this already splendid view. Or like someone pushed the “enhance” option key on the Photoshop program of the computer. I want to eat these sweet little farm clusters up every time I see one, each of them posing like a model for its postcard opportunity.
The first time I took in this pastoral view, I thought happily, I’m in love with this. I want to live here, love here, snuggle sheep here, and eat chocolate. (And I don’t even love chocolate, but Swiss chocolate is exceptionally good.) Tim, Mutt, and I took to hiking the hills. One time, as Tim bent down to drink from one of the mountain water troughs that zigzag the terrain, his tail grazed an electric fence belonging to a livestock farm. Zap! Suddenly I heard my poor dog yelping in pain. Those fences are pumped with enough voltage to discourage thousand-pound cattle from escaping, so Tim was pretty lucky that he didn’t get seriously hurt.
Other than that, the lake region was the perfect place to be after leaving the road and the craziness of the entertainment world. For one thing, almost no one even knew who I was. I mean, they may have been familiar with the music of Come On Over—as it sold something like seven million copies in Europe—but I, the artist, wasn’t considered a big deal in Switzerland. That by itself brought a kind of freedom I hadn’t experienced in years. It’s not that I mind being recognized in public; I mean, if you’ve sold millions and millions of records and suddenly nobody stops you on the street, you might want to call your manager to inquire about the health of your career, but it’s heartening to be reminded that sometimes when strangers approach you, it’s not because you’re famous, but rather that they just want to be friendly. (In some cases, they just wanted directions and figured that I must be a local!) Let’s face it, celebrity or not, sincerity can be frustratingly hard to find and is something to be valued.
Living away from the magnifying glass of fame had a healthy effect on me. I slowly began to shed the protective shell that I’d built up over the last few years and even began making eye contact with strangers again. To be able to wander the streets just like everybody else was a revelation to me. Every once in a while someone, usually a tourist, would recognize me and ask for an autograph or a picture. It had become so unexpected that it actually c
aught me off guard. And you know what? Now it came as a pleasant surprise, like a child finding a piece of candy that she’d left in her pocket and forgot about.
• • •
The only downside to living in a place where no one knew me was that I didn’t know anyone. I missed Kim, and Stacy, and Helene, and my family back home in Canada. Bear in mind that I’d just come off the road, where you’re surrounded by a surrogate family of musicians and crew. For all my damned griping about the exhaustion of touring, that’s the part I treasure most: the relationships you establish.
At first, I felt very much out of my element in my new country, where I didn’t yet speak the language. The only friend I had at first was an Italian-French woman, five years younger than me, named Marie-Anne, who’d been serving as Mutt’s secretary and interpreter while we were renovating, because none of the workers spoke English. She’d spent most of her life in the area, and so I had to rely on her to an uncomfortable degree, including when it came to learning how to operate the parking meters.
At first Marie-Anne acted a bit chilly toward me, which I attributed to shyness. Or perhaps it was a language barrier between us that prevented deeper communication. We started to bond when the two of us became pregnant within four months of each other.
Mutt and I had not made a firm decision to start a family early on in our marriage, but I left myself open to the possibility of someday having a child. Still, I had no specific time period in mind. I also respected Mutt’s preference to not have children at all, although he wasn’t against it. So we both just left the decision loose. Once the Come On Over tour ended and I began settling into being off the road, we made the decision to have a child after all. I learned I was pregnant in November 2000, with a due date of August 22, 2001.
