Life moves fast in my house. Then there are days it moves slow. Almost too slow. There is often an imbalance between the two.
This article has been sitting on my desktop since it was released almost three weeks ago. https://www.stereogum.com/2033408/closer-to-fine-at-30-the-legacy-of-indigo-girls-spellbinding-singalong/franchises/sounding-board/
I thought I’d take a day and ponder the last thirty years. That day turned into twenty or so, and I can only hope for another thirty or more to truly understand what the last thirty have meant to me.
We all have the remember when stories, right?
What were you doing when Kennedy was shot? I wasn’t born yet.
Remember when Nixon said he wasn’t a crook? I don’t, but I’ve seen the footage.
Reagan’s fitness program crammed into every American elementary school via Arnold? Yes, now memories are pooling. I remember sitting on little red round stools attached to a lunch table singing Pink Floyd waiting for our table to be called for jump rope time trials.
‘Tear down this wall!’ Yes, memories are even more clear.
That year I worked in a grocery store with a young woman I admired. She was funny. She was cool. But cool in a way others didn’t see. Cool in a way that attracted me. I could listen to her talk all day. At the end of her shift, her girlfriend would come get her and off they’d go. But when she was with me working together, we fit. It took another two years for this woman to take me to my first gay bar. I was underage. She knew the owners. I promised I wouldn’t drink, and she promised to keep me safe.
Safe.
Safe?
Safe from all the lesbians she said would want me. Fresh meat. She wasn’t selling the lifestyle very well at that point, and I didn’t know if I wanted to be a part of it anyway, so safe was good.
That was the year – thirty years ago – when I heard Land of Canaan.
The year I fell in love.
With Amy Ray.
Amy had the same thing my friend Kris had.
I had the same attraction to them both.
It was the year I saw Amy and Emily open for my favorite band at the time, R.E.M.
Amy Ray was life changing for me.
Ready to dive right in after listening to the Closer to Fine cassette single from side to side – Land of Canaan was the B-Side – over and over for days on end, Kris and I were at a softball game -surprise, right – and I pushed her up against a wall and kissed her. Classy, yes?
Amy and Emily, this album and the indie before this, later released on Epic, Strange Fire, still my favorite album, helped me find myself. I found me.
It’s hard to sum up thirty years in one blog post.
It’s hard to believe it’s been thirty years.
It’s hard to think of the twists and turns I took. The disappointments, the broken hearts, the people I walked from, the women…
I’m a mother now. Kris died twenty-six year ago.
I’ve had broken hearts.
I’ve cried into my guitar.
I’ve written songs filled with love and loss.
I’ve written books.
I’ve loved.
I’ve lost.
I’ve given.
I’ve taken.
Every moment of every one of those thirty years I’ve kept Amy and Emily in my world. No matter the changes, no matter the miles, I’ve kept them.
And I’ll keep them my constant in all the years to come. I could write something about what happened every year with every release of theirs, but for now, I’ll remember falling for Amy first. Always first. Always here.