I love Americana Roots music. I go to the Americana music series in Parkersburg every chance I get. But last night I experienced a rare treat. I went to the Olde Town Pickin’ Parlor in Arvada with some of my Sisters on the Fly friends. An amazing group of talented musicians gathered to play their own music as well as some standards.

This was Americana with a twist…it was western music. Like Cowboy Poetry western. Juni Fisher was there. She sang about her beloved horses. She sang a haunting song about an Irish washer woman seeing a Native American across the river and recognizing her as a mother, just like herself, and not an enemy. There were a couple of cowboys there who sang other songs about ranches and cowboys and dancehall girls. The slow, sweet strains of a cowboy singing a love song will tear your heart in two.

I looked across the room and saw a man standing along one wall. He seemed familiar in some way. Perhaps we had worked together in the past. Maybe he just had one of those faces that remind you of someone else. As the evening wore on, I was drawn back to this man repeatedly. Then it hit me. He looked like someone I knew. An old lover from maybe ’77. I was pretty young…he was maybe ten years older. I never caught his eye. I didn’t interrupt him. He was with a woman I assumed was his wife. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. But, I smiled at the memory of my time with him as I listened to songs about unrequited love, the lonesome lyrics making me feel my heart beat. He was a very nice man and, in my clumsiness, I may have hurt his heart. There was no need to revisit that.

It’s difficult to impress on young people the stories of their youth may show up in the most surprising places…at the most inopportune times. These are the things we learn when it’s too late because you can’t un-ring a bell. I’m glad I saw him. I’m just as glad he didn’t see me.

❤️

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV