I had a half formed idea about including a story I once heard about Johnny and June Carter Cash in this post but it is probably not going to happen.
Mostly because I can’t remember enough of what the story was about to perform an accurate search for it.
Instead I’ll a share a link to Johnny’s love letter to June and say promises made, promises broken.
And we’ll just roll with whatever thoughts surface and see where the journey takes us.
Rolling With The Changes
I am listening to the first cut off of Zooropa and thinking about how initially I didn’t like it very much.
Though I am not one to follow the crowd in this instance I wasn’t alone because there were a lot of U2 fans who didn’t like it.
It was different from their past works and sometimes change isn’t appreciated.
But I kept listening and some of it grew on me and eventually I found myself listening to a cut called The Wanderer over and over.
They lyrics and the voice coming from the CD captured my imagination and made me feel something.
That was when I became a Johnny Cash fan.
Wandering and changes suited me, but I don’t think I realized then just how closely I would learn to embrace them both.
It is funny to think about because some people say I hate change and suggest I don’t do very well with it.
Well I can look most in the eye and run down the multiple changes I have been through and am still going through and feel confident I am good with change.
Might not always like it, but I know how to adjust, adapt and pivot as needed.
Intentionally Ignored
A short while ago a friend and I were talking about some friends in common and I had no idea what they were referring to.
They told me they were sure I wasn’t intentionally ignored and that I shouldn’t take not knowing personally.
But the thing is/was, my gut feeling disagreed with what I was hearing.
I was irritated because it felt like a giant waste of energy and it is possible I was wrong.
Why get upset over narishkeit and waste energy feeling hurt.
So I walked over to the mirror, looked at my reflection and said I acknowledged his disappointment and that it was time to suck it up.
He looked back at me and said the millenials would say you are being ghosted. They didn’t unfriend you because they don’t want confrontation. You get intentionally ignored and they don’t have to worry about looking your Facebook profile in the eye while they let you go.
The scariest part wasn’t trying to figure out whether that was true or not.
No, it was the realization that your reflection was speaking and your own lips weren’t moving simultaneously. 😉
Seven Years Later
My grandmother died the night of my 14th wedding anniversary.
It wasn’t a complete surprise nor was it something to be mourned as a tragic death because grandma was 96.
She and grandpa were married twice, once in secret and once in the traditional manner.
When I was 20 grandpa told me why they got married in secret.
“You know your grandma and I got married in secret because your grandmother was a good girl and well, we were 20. I think you understand what I mean.”
I smiled at grandpa and told him I could bleach my eyes but not my memory.
“You watch it hotshot, that is my wife you are talking about. We started spending time together when we were 11.”
He said it with a smile on his face and laughed a bit at my reaction but in a warm and kind way.
A couple of months before he died he told me I could share whatever stories I wanted about him and grandma, as long as I didn’t make grandma look bad.
I laughed and told him I had plenty on him but nothing on her.
He laughed too and told me he talked to her every night before he went to sleep.
“What do you tell her?”
“None of your business, that is between me and her.”
Grandpa died a few months later. It was about a week before my sister’s wedding.
That wasn’t a complete shock either, no one ever expected grandpa to outlive grandma, but he did for 18 months.
If she had still been around he would have kept going, but he found it difficult to not have her around.
Not long before the end I asked him if I was ever going to get the pony he promised me and he told me probably not because it was glue.
Promises made, promises broken.
Many people have no idea this is a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song.
It is off of his American IV: The Man Comes Around and is one of several covers he performed on the album.
Many of them like “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” are solid but Hurt is the one he truly made into his own.
There are other people who know far more about music than I do, but if I am not mistaken this album was done in part because his music had fallen out of fashion.
So he pivoted, adjusted and adapted.
I can appreciate that just as I appreciate a bunch of things about his story.
Think I’ll end this with a link to The Man Comes Around and a couple of thoughts.
I don’t pay any attention to the religious references in it and just enjoy it because I adapt it to my own needs.
That is part of what we do with music and writing, we adapt it to our needs.
****
Ok, I lied, Til Kingdom Come by Coldplay just came on and though there are many lines I could share right now, this set catches my ear
“The wheels just keep on turning,
The drummers begin to drum,
I don’t know which way I’m going,
I don’t know what I’ve become.”
Promises made, promises broken.
