i will meet you all out in the street
Radio Paradise played this one on their “Mellow Mix” on the way home yesterday after dropping L off at his RCIA class:
It’s just…a stunning song. I turned it up and drove home in a distant-eyed trance as the chords & lyrics came through the minivan’s speakers. It’s a Patti Griffin cover, and the singers added an extra verse at the end that bolsters the song’s contemporary relevance. But even beyond that, I can’t really explain, besides the obvious artistry, my feelings about the song. They’re inscrutable; the only intelligible sensation that I can make out is an overwhelming feeling of YES, I want to be that for you, act that way toward you—forever. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, but if I’ve learned anything about relationships through the years, it’s that being “careful” with a woman requires a delicate, ever-shifting balance of resolve, decisiveness, sensitivity, intuition, wisdom, tenderness, and a host of other attributes—and all those specifically calibrated to the particular needs and person of the woman I’m with. It takes constant vigilance and effort, yes, but it takes MORE than just that; there has to be some intrinsic understanding, some intuitive, baseline level on which she feels seen and understood before any conscious effort is applied. There really is a certain sense in which you can’t get There from Here; either you have it or you don’t. I think the song reminds me of how the act of “being careful” requires both the intuitive connection AND the effort, and how vanishingly rare it is to find someone with whom you feel that connection, and who feels it toward you. I thought I had earlier this year, but it turned out to be a false hope, something both profoundly discouraging after adding all that (happy) effort, but also somehow encouraging that it did happen—which means it could happen again. Maybe.