Down That Red Dirt Road

I was watching a Brooks and Dunn Finale Concert tonight. Sugarland walked onto the stage to sing ‘Red Dirt Road’ as a tribute to the duo.

Jennifer Nettles has a voice that cuts right to the soul.  As she sang, her partner, Christian, carried the swell of emotion with his harmonica. 

There are two instruments that reach inside my chest and grip my heart – a harmonica and bagpipes.

It was one of those rare performances – a moment to remember.

So, I’m lost in the music, listening to a song about the by-gone days of youth, and I found tears running down my cheeks – which was wholly unexpected. Especially since I had uterine cancer, and I now have to take a medication that places many of my tears on hold.  

But Jennifer Nettles…man.  Her voice is so plaintiff…raw…and the song brought up longings for all those lost yesterdays. Those amazing years of youth that so many artists sing about, but few capture the way she did tonight. 

It was kindda like what a close friend recently said to me in an email about the cadence of poetry.  If you don’t ‘follow’, you can’t ‘go there’. 

Well, I listened.  My soul heard… and I went there. And you know, it wasn’t about the words.  It was the feeling invoked  – intimate.

I think peeps try to recapture those feelings. But that’s like trying to hold time in your hands. We can’t go back. We can’t change what was. 

And youth…well, it holds it’s own special essence. The road before us is just being paved.  Youth holds an outward, not necessarily focused energy…pulsating, and reckless excitement. It wants…yearns. And nothing is outside the realm of possibility. 

Sadly, over time,  that feeling seeps away, until it finally disappears.

We grow up.

And I think that’s why I cried.

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