A while back, I attended a house concert that proved to be an unexpected delight. The evening was a perfect combination of youth, beauty, music, a glass of unexceptional red wine (as far as I can tell, large pot-luck events seem to yield an abundance of unexceptional wines, and the one I contributed was no better. Perhaps no one wants to bring a truly superior wine, only to offer it amidst all the lesser vintages) and my exceptional husband (willing to accompany me on yet another request to try something new, even though he’s not much of a folk music fan so he was clearly only there as a gift to me).
A young female singer/songwriter duo contributed the youth, beauty and music. Two milky-skinned women, with no make-up, casual clothes, forgotten hair, but with big doe eyes that shone with intelligence, and the burgeoning soul of the folk singers. They were so young and innocent and open that they seemed to be playing an evening-long game of charades, having picked the card saying, “Folk Musicians.” They chatted awkwardly in between their songs. The guitar player looked like an orphan/waif - dressed down in a drab brown plaid skirt that flared at her ankles, holding a guitar that almost dwarfed her body, making her appear even younger and smaller. For other songs, she played and picked an old Banjo. At some point in the set she informed us that her acoustic guitar was a '57 Vintage Gibson LG2 that she restored to playing condition. And when she switched to an electric guitar, she became full grown, throwing off the deceit of the plaid-skirt dowdy girl playing grown-up, and revealing an inner feminine power and playfulness. One of the last things the women told the audience was that they took their band name from a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. They may look fresh and milky and new, but they are clearly a literate, creative, talented duo.
The music was melodic and graceful, the lyrics were meaningful (as much as 20-something creamy-skinned young Rocky Mountain region women can breathe into their art while wrapped in the arms of youth, and, no matter what perils life has offered so far, haven’t lived through and been changed by the lifetime that lies ahead for each of them). Each song was lovely, and my husband enjoyed the music far more than he’d anticipated. My husband and I were so much older than the musicians, yet younger than most of the audience members, so it was an odd parallel – to me, the musicians were like the young fresh college kids I’ve taught over the years, and I was the old, wise crone smiling benevolently throughout their performance. But I felt like a young, inexperienced girl in conversation with the 60- and 70-year old attendees. I’m sure I reminded them of a more youthful time in their lives, and basked in their benevolent, indulgent smile as we conversed.
I was unjustifiably proud of these two young women – as if their success somehow was a reflection on me, and the way I’ve led my life. I felt more youthful optimism and buoyant hope in the next generation. These are not the typical cynical, disheartened, unmotivated, responsibility-avoidant Gen-Xers. They are living their lives, taking risks, creating music, competing on the national scene for recognition. These are powerful women using thrift-store attire to obscure the trail of their intelligence and thirst for success. I know some 20-something women who haven’t yet hit their stride, haven’t given themselves permission to live their full potential. Instead, they hold themselves back, eschewing challenges, hoarding safety and escapism, thus preventing success or growth, and reinforcing their desire to avoid the (scary/challenging) world.
And who knows, maybe there is something that these two women are riding on, that has come from the inroads of women who came before them. Not me in particular, of course, but my generation of women who are high achievers and have chosen family and career and creativity and spirituality and community and we still make home-made meals for our kids and read to them and truthfully, we’re quite tired by the end of the day, but look what we’ve produced: a generation that includes women like these two – pursuing dreams and talent and feeling strong enough about themselves to put whatever clothes they want over their smooth-skinned youth.
I tracked down the Longfellow poem that inspired this band. I’ve read it several times, cheated by looking up possible meanings, then returned and read it several more times. What I’ve come to appreciate is the poet’s use image of light and warmth - from a fire made of shipwrecked wood - to describe the feeling of friendships moving apart over time; the way warmth can remain even when the substance has gone.
Much depth for women so early in their paths. Perhaps they wonder what will become of their musical union as time continues to press on. I’ve had at least 20+ years more of life than these young musicians, and have come to realize that no one knows which friendships, alliances, or soul mates will last, and which will break apart. Which relationships, when over, still bring warmth and an inner glow, and which, instead, bring a chill and an unfillable emptiness.
A young female singer/songwriter duo contributed the youth, beauty and music. Two milky-skinned women, with no make-up, casual clothes, forgotten hair, but with big doe eyes that shone with intelligence, and the burgeoning soul of the folk singers. They were so young and innocent and open that they seemed to be playing an evening-long game of charades, having picked the card saying, “Folk Musicians.” They chatted awkwardly in between their songs. The guitar player looked like an orphan/waif - dressed down in a drab brown plaid skirt that flared at her ankles, holding a guitar that almost dwarfed her body, making her appear even younger and smaller. For other songs, she played and picked an old Banjo. At some point in the set she informed us that her acoustic guitar was a '57 Vintage Gibson LG2 that she restored to playing condition. And when she switched to an electric guitar, she became full grown, throwing off the deceit of the plaid-skirt dowdy girl playing grown-up, and revealing an inner feminine power and playfulness. One of the last things the women told the audience was that they took their band name from a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. They may look fresh and milky and new, but they are clearly a literate, creative, talented duo.
The music was melodic and graceful, the lyrics were meaningful (as much as 20-something creamy-skinned young Rocky Mountain region women can breathe into their art while wrapped in the arms of youth, and, no matter what perils life has offered so far, haven’t lived through and been changed by the lifetime that lies ahead for each of them). Each song was lovely, and my husband enjoyed the music far more than he’d anticipated. My husband and I were so much older than the musicians, yet younger than most of the audience members, so it was an odd parallel – to me, the musicians were like the young fresh college kids I’ve taught over the years, and I was the old, wise crone smiling benevolently throughout their performance. But I felt like a young, inexperienced girl in conversation with the 60- and 70-year old attendees. I’m sure I reminded them of a more youthful time in their lives, and basked in their benevolent, indulgent smile as we conversed.
I was unjustifiably proud of these two young women – as if their success somehow was a reflection on me, and the way I’ve led my life. I felt more youthful optimism and buoyant hope in the next generation. These are not the typical cynical, disheartened, unmotivated, responsibility-avoidant Gen-Xers. They are living their lives, taking risks, creating music, competing on the national scene for recognition. These are powerful women using thrift-store attire to obscure the trail of their intelligence and thirst for success. I know some 20-something women who haven’t yet hit their stride, haven’t given themselves permission to live their full potential. Instead, they hold themselves back, eschewing challenges, hoarding safety and escapism, thus preventing success or growth, and reinforcing their desire to avoid the (scary/challenging) world.
And who knows, maybe there is something that these two women are riding on, that has come from the inroads of women who came before them. Not me in particular, of course, but my generation of women who are high achievers and have chosen family and career and creativity and spirituality and community and we still make home-made meals for our kids and read to them and truthfully, we’re quite tired by the end of the day, but look what we’ve produced: a generation that includes women like these two – pursuing dreams and talent and feeling strong enough about themselves to put whatever clothes they want over their smooth-skinned youth.
I tracked down the Longfellow poem that inspired this band. I’ve read it several times, cheated by looking up possible meanings, then returned and read it several more times. What I’ve come to appreciate is the poet’s use image of light and warmth - from a fire made of shipwrecked wood - to describe the feeling of friendships moving apart over time; the way warmth can remain even when the substance has gone.
Much depth for women so early in their paths. Perhaps they wonder what will become of their musical union as time continues to press on. I’ve had at least 20+ years more of life than these young musicians, and have come to realize that no one knows which friendships, alliances, or soul mates will last, and which will break apart. Which relationships, when over, still bring warmth and an inner glow, and which, instead, bring a chill and an unfillable emptiness.
The Fire of Drift-wood
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD.
We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;
The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.
And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.
The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;
Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
Published in Longfellow’s (1849) The Seaside and the Fireside.
Online at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173898
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD.
We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;
The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.
And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.
The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;
Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
Published in Longfellow’s (1849) The Seaside and the Fireside.
Online at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173898
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