From A Distance

 

My sister Jackie told me about a show on PBS that talked about the Erie Canal so I went to check it out. After that I noticed there was an Austin City Limit show featuring Nanci Griffith and against my better judgement I went down that rabbit hole. I knew it would break my heart and it did. Rickie and I loved her and had been lucky to see her one time. She had a pure soul, an empathetic heart, that made her songs real. She felt her songs when she sang them. 

And I was taken back to a time in my life when Rickie and I saw many Texas singer-songwriters. All the kids had grown up and left home. We had a pretty little house in Houston and had had the ranch for 10 years when we started going to the Mucky Duck and other small venues to see everyone we liked. The legends of Texas singer-songwriters. The storytellers who put the simple things of life into songs, who tell in words the emotions we feel. Who show us we aren’t alone in our feelings. 

Some friends and I were talking the other day about what the best times in our lives were. We are all widows and these last years of our lives are not like we dreamed and planned for. We’ve all made new lives and have found them to be good. But we all miss the lives we had. We don’t dwell on them too often but we do have those moments and days when we just wish the dreams had carried us to the end. 

Listening to Nanci Griffith sing her songs, from the one about the young couple dancing at the five and dime, riding with the taxi driver who wondered what chance the child on the street corner had in life, how “from a distance you look like my friend even though we are at war”, and the touching song she wrote about going to Saigon and walking through the part of life her ex-husband lived through when he was sent to Vietnam as a young man. She sang about bluebonnets and listening to the radio when you couldn’t find a friend. About a beautiful daughter of a miner who became a prostitute to support herself and died alone on the street. 

And with every song I was taken back to those days with Rickie. When we’d work in Houston all week and head for the ranch when we could, staying in the tiny little rundown camper. I was the designated driver for those trips to the Duck, heading back to our house in Katy. I didn’t have the trouble driving at night then as much as I do now. We’d have shepherd’s pie or Guinness stew in a bread bowl at the Duck. We’d bring the bread bowl home with us to eat when we got back home. Or if we didn’t have any left to-go, we’d make a stop at Whataburger. Nothing makes you hungry for a late night snack like good music.  

Nanci passed away not too long ago, as have other singer songwriters we saw including Jimmy LaFave and Guy Clark. When I think about those days I usually just brush the memories aside quickly. But sometimes you hear songs that put you right back in that place, in that time. It’s best not to do it too often because it’s hard to come back out of it and no good comes from breaking your heart over again. 

The last time I danced with Rickie was in the driveway at the ranch, under a full moon. We danced to Dancing in the Moonlight playing on my iPhone. We had driven the Mule to see our friends down the road and have dinner with them. Good times. Heartbreaking memories.