dailyeatings

She took me to a show to see a musician she knew from her college days in Nashville, an acoustic singer-songwriter I had never heard of. Doors opened at 6.30 and it was 95F outside, so by the time he took the stage, the crushing hordes of undergrads and high schoolers were too much for even the industrial-strength air conditioners. Before the show, she had told me how this was the soundtrack of her life, and that while this was nominally my birthday present she felt guilty that she this was definitely her thing. I’m sooooo excited, she kept saying, with that little jumpy-head-shake-thing she does when she’s giddy. She knew all the lyrics and sang along to every word while I mostly just stood behind her, smiling when she would turn around and ask me if it was great or what. Well, with a single exception: during one of this last songs, one that all the kids there knew, something about where green meets red meets blue, he started jamming on an old song about how love is a temple, a higher law, a song to which I most definitely know the lyrics, and it was her turn to stand mute with her hands in her pockets while I sang my head off.