I've always learned more from my children than they could possibly learn from me. Today, driving, a song came on the radio, the alt-rock station my 14-year-old son has converted from a never-listen to a frequent-listen for me, even when I am alone. (Although NPR still rules the airwaves in my world.)
The song that came on was "Hurt" by Johnny Cash,a cover of the brilliant Trent Reznor's song recorded near the end of Cash's remarkable life.
I love just about everything about Johnny Cash -- his music, his life, his weaknesses, his great love. Especially his relationship with June Carter, truly one of the great American love stories of the past century.
The movie. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. Great performances.
But this late song cuts me to the bone. When we grow old, so old that our voices weaken and tremble, our steps falter, our skin becomes pocked with dark spots, our eyes grow milky, our bodies bend southward, we still have things to say that may prove to be of value to the young.
This song is that kind of gift. Please listen to it. I never stop being amazed by the emotional depth of the young boy who introduced it to me. Or by his music, my music, our music.
Or by the ability to teach from any age to any age; old to young, yes, but also young to old. It's all in the song.
-30-
2 comments:
Cousin David,
Following your link, I listened to this song and watched the poignant video. It is moving. Perhaps more because it seems convincingly from Johnny Cash's heart; his true life reflections as he faced his own mortality and the realization that he was powerless to change what was.
So many of your musings have been laced with the passions of anger, bitter disappointment, and frustration over the past several years... I wonder if there is something wrong with me that I don't possess more of these same feelings. Am I somehow defective that I do not more fully appreciate pain or suffering? Am I so unaware of the human condition that I cannot more fully appreciate evils perpetrated on myself and the multitudes around me?
We have lived many years in the same American society, struggled with our similar human demons (and from where I stand I'd swear my choices were at least as flawed as yours, or most anyone else of our generation), yet I seem to lack the passions of hate, the depth of disappointment, the bitterness of dreams unfulfilled.
I suspect there is a lot more here than meets the eye - certainly for me, and I suspect there is something to be gained by pondering such. With your permission, I'll throw out a few thoughts on this from time to time.
Dan
Dan: There is nothing wrong with you.
You wrote:
"So many of your musings have been laced with the passions of anger, bitter disappointment, and frustration over the past several years... I wonder if there is something wrong with me that I don't possess more of these same feelings. Am I somehow defective that I do not more fully appreciate pain or suffering?"
The person with something wrong is me. Anybody who writes or sings or paints as their primary occupation has antenna better suited for insects. We are your early warning system. The hairs on the backs of our necks actually stand up in anger, sadness, fear and many other emotions that regular people have learned how to moderate.
You are fine. It is I, and those like me, who are the freaks, the weirdos. Listen to Radiohead.
This is what we do. We sense the margins, the terrible things. We see ghosts and shadows. Sometimes we are way wrong. Sometimes we are way right.
Either way we are never part of the mainstream. I left the mainstream decades ago. All I try to do now is to reach back in there, to people like you, and express what it is like out here, floating on the margins, as strange butterflies with stingers.
Please comment or post all you want. People need to hear from the likes of you every bit as much as they hear from the likes of me.
Please give my love to Aunt Reta. She looked very fine in the photos from Rolling Hills last weekend. A true character and the kind of aunt who always gave me cookies.
It actually never gets any better than that.
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