Things You Can't Keep

It isn't very often these days that I feel like writing. That's just a fact, and a sad one at that. Other things are good, it's a rewarding time at work, where I feel challenged to almost exactly the right degree, and where I know I am at times seeing the best version of myself. And reading is good, better than usual.

But still, I miss the writing, of course, so when I felt like writing tonight, it was like that day in winter when you finally wake up to light instead of darkness. Jenny Lewis did it. B and I went to see her at Meany Hall tonight, and I sat there next to him, so happy, wishing I could write everything down, remember every note. I can't tell you what I would have written, that's how these things happen, it slips away, and you know it's going to slip away, and sometimes you have to let it.

But I can tell you how beautiful her voice was. It was more beautiful than a guitar or a violin or a cello. More beautiful than her long hair or pretty face, or the lyrics to the song with the chorus that tells your best girlfriend to keep the lighthouse in sight. She and Jonathan Rice sang Love Hurts more beautifully than even Emmylou and Gram, and I know, believe me I know, what sacrilege that sounds like, but I swear, for me, tonight, it was true. There was not a wrong moment in her voice. I'd be willing to bet it will be the most beautiful singing voice I hear live all year. It was more beautiful than even the way B smiled at me when I told him I was scared, and more beautiful than the way he asked, gently, "What is there to be scared about?"

And for one evening, sitting still, listening hard in the dark, with Jenny singing about all the hard parts of love, it was all so beautiful that I almost believed there wasn't anything to be scared about at all.