Two years ago my older brother Tim passed away due to Covid. He was 7 years older than me and when we were younger- much younger- he opened me up to a world of great music. We might be at our father’s house in Newport or I might have been up at Tim’s house in Vermont where he lived with a group of friends- a sort of “hippie house”- and I would suddenly hear his voice. “Hey Rosie, come here! You gotta hear this!” He actually never played a single piece of music for me that I didn’t like, in fact generally that I didn’t love. Dave Mason’s album “Alone Together” was one of them- every track on it being excellent. He loved it and I immediately fell in love with it. Since that day, more than 50 years ago, I have listened to it hundreds of times. It is one of my all-time favorite albums. I know every word and every note on that album. (I have gone through two copies of the vinyl- because the first one got so worn out and now have it on CD.)
A few years ago I decided I wanted to learn to play the song “Sad and Deep As You” on my guitar. It’s one of those songs that you can just sit and play and sing over and over and never tire of it. Just a sweet, sad, beautiful song. Four years ago I put everything in storage and left the country for a while. Due to the pandemic I ended up relocating and much of my stuff has stayed in storage. Yesterday I was unpacking a box from a load of stuff I had brought down from RI last week and there was a little pile of papers in the bottom of the box- songs that I had printed out a few years ago, and that song was among them.
I was feeling good, with warm memories, just singing and getting into the sweet groove of the song and suddenly the memory hit me… of Tim turning me on to that album, sitting on the bed with him just completely knocked out by the music- all of the songs, the words, the nuances and that wonderful shared experience… and I was weeping.
And there was the last verse:
Tears that are unspoken words
Tears that are the truth
Tears that tell a story
As sad and deep as you…
So, I sat and cried- wept- and then I started singing it again… and again… and again…
Grateful for memories.
Grateful for the ability to feel deeply.