Revelation
Country music is still teaching me so much about myself (and us) almost 45 years into life. I'm thankful.
This edition is written as a letter to my best friend and inspired by the Morgan Wallen song “Revelation” off the album I’m the Problem. I have written alongside several of his songs for a few years now, and one day I want to hold his hand for an uncomfortable amount of time. I told my friend this and she said “Of course you do.”
Dear b -
Remember yesterday when I sent you more Morgan Wallen songs to listen to? Thank you as always for honoring my Life Laugh Let’s Play Some Wallen lifestyle. I think you get it why I listen to him. I love that you and I have talked about how country music sounds like home, sounds like poor people working through some demons, and little bit like church in ways that matter. I didn’t know that even after almost 30 years after leaving the church that I’d still crave songs that hum similar to the hymns of our childhoods. But here I am and you know Wallen is one of the best at it.
I’m still stuck on these lyrics:
I’m hummin’ Cat’s in the Cradle
Need some Billy Graham on that cable
Instead of Jim Beam sittin’ on a table
Ooh
I’m a long, long way from home
Ooh
But I can still see it through the smoke
I am thinking a lot about where you and I come from, the deepest of the south, the alleged buckle of the bible belt. I am thinking a lot about how we are both a long, long way from home, and how we both know exactly who Billy Graham is. I am thinking a lot about how we both got church, left church, found church in our own ways. Did you grow up with Jim Beam? The closest I got to it was finding my grandfather’s J&B stashes when it was time to clean out the house. I didn’t grow up with alcohol in the homes I was in, but I definitely saw other kinds of self-medicating and avoidance.
I know you did too.
Now we are in our 40s and listen to country music on purpose instead of whatever our mamas were playing in the car. We try to be here. We are breaking the cycles of the Jim Beam AND the Billy Graham. Every time we talk about avoidance and our old patterns, I am so grateful to have you in my life. You’ve known me, really known me, for over 20 years now. We collided in the early 2000s when the world was so different. We were so different. I can still see us in our silly baby gay outfits just trying to make our ways in this world. We have. We did it. How did we get here?
Yeah, mama and Heaven both know
I'm a man on the run with a hand on a gun
I'm a father and a son
Who needs that Holy Ghost
I know how I got here and I think I know how you got here. I’ve run so many times and hit the gas more times than I can count. You were there for all of them. You came toward me leaving even when it meant distance, when it meant tears, when it meant new routines without each other or with each other in new ways. Every time I tested how far my tires would take me, you were steadfast. On the days I feel like cutting to run and being on the defensive for people hurting me, I think mostly of you. I think of how many times you were and are my Holy Ghost. I am reviewing all the times you helped me tether to right here and now. I got here with your help.
You are a Taurus after all! Your grounding of me in times I feel like my mind is tearing apart has given me immeasurable gratitude and lessons in being here. BEing here.
How did you get here to Be?
Ooh
I’m a long, long way from home
Ooh
Too early, too late to get somebody on the phone
I don’t reach for the Jim Beam blackouts like Wallen does. You’re one of the reasons why that’s true. There’s something about entwining hearts and lives with another southerner who remembers what it looked like when the Holy Ghost appeared in church, who knows what Pat Robertson sounds like, and knows the stings of being around passionate people who quashed their fire with anything but love.
Being in deep friendship with you for so long has reminded me that I may be a long, long way from home, but it’s never too early or too late to get you on the phone. I find home in you and in myself when we are together. You’ve been such a wonderful friend to me over the decades. I have learned so much about myself, about people, and about appreciation being in friendship with you for even a day.
That’s my Revelation. We need each other. We being all of us and absolutely you and me, though I think we’d be okay not needing each other. Still, I need you.
Sometimes we also need shared memory, shared experience, shared growth to see that being a long way from home is good and holy. That we can help each other stop reaching for that bottle. To remember that where we came from is always with us, but maybe it doesn’t have to be where we are going. Because where We are going, is a place of I love you early and often. I think it’s a sacred practice to say “I love you” to each other because while that love shifts and changes over time, what an amazing act of devotion to what is right then and there.
I hope we have decades ahead of us to find new moments to say I love you. I hope we get back to playing cards and reminiscing with music. I hope sooner than later we make southern food like we did in our bright eyed early 20s, but now it’s better because we have learned how to season things.
I have just 26 school days until I am a Licensed Massage Therapist! Can you believe?! I’m finally here. I have 40 days between me and the road again. At the end of that road is you. Dinners, walks, heartaches, taking dance classes together, and uncomfortably long hugs. A lot of I love yous. A lot of us. That’s my Revelation.
Thank you for being my Holy Ghost even when I didn’t know that’s what I needed. Thank you for being a friend to me when I could have been reaching for the J&B.
With love and gratitude,
your b