The Red Dirt Girl

I don’t think you’re ever quite prepared for Emmylou Harris to show up unannounced at your patio, but I might have been especially so. I wish I’d practiced my guitar more than I had, or washed my hair that morning, but that’s water under the bridge now. There’s no sense in arguing with the past.

Emmylou apparently stopped by to see if it was true what she’d seen on the internet. Was I really walking all over town singing her song Red Dirt Girl, days into nights ad nauseum, to the concern of the community for weeks on end, with the local news trucks in hot pursuit? She didn’t say it, and I’d never think of her as a gawker, but between you and me, I think she came for the spectacle. Still, if this is how you get to meet Emmylou Harris, I would have been singing her songs to a detriment long ago.

So, the patio. There I was, sitting with my guitar on one of my forever grungy outdoor chairs playing songs for my cats, which I am wont to do. The raccoon and fox were there too but peeking out from the back of a tree in the distance. They’d affixed to the bottom of the tree a sign that said in nearly unreadable scrawl "fan base". This is where they listen from.

“I see you,” I said to them, pointing my two fingers at my eyes, then to theirs. They tittered, but I kept it tight. You can’t give those guys an inch.

While I played through some song intros, all the animals were enjoying the sounds and didn’t complain one bit that I was strumming the same handful of chords back and forth. Music is music. I think they were even swaying, or eating, and all was bliss in my yard, until I broke out the inevitable--Red Dirt Girl. It starts with the G chord, then E minor, moves to a beautiful chord called Cadd9, then to D4. Or at least that’s how the music notation online has me do it.

While my skill is rudimentary, my voice is the real kicker, which is why as soon as I started to sing, my audience began to howl. It was subtle at first, then unmistakable. My eyes darted up from the guitar to squint at my so-called fans. With pained faces, the raccoon and fox were standing on hind legs with their front paws reaching up to block their ears, which is not even anatomically possible, and rude.

At any rate, I’ve taken on the new task of learning the guitar and am slowly getting there. I can play chords and sing. I’m working on learning to finger pick, but it takes time. Apparently, there is a level of guitar proficiency that describes me: campfire player.

Being a campfire player doesn’t prevent me from having a muse though, and these days my muse is decidedly Lillian, a down-and-out young woman who is the protagonist in Red Dirt Girl. The song is heartbreaking, and the opening lyrics “me and my best friend Lillian, and her blue tick hound dog Gideon” are on my tongue constantly—while I walk, while I shower, while I do laundry, while the local news trucks chase me. I can’t stop singing about Lillian whose options became fraught because of how she chose and the burdens she carried.

I have nothing in common with Lillian, but her tragic life is a nudge in the back of anyone’s mind to keep trying to do what you can, both for yourself and for the world. Each time I finish singing the song, I’m left with the stark feeling that Lillian’s slide downward wasn’t inevitable. There’s an imperceptible sigh. It didn’t have to go that way. I want to reverse Lillian’s fate, turn back the clock so she can choose differently. Defy time. Defy the lyrics. But the lyrics are written in stone because they won a Grammy, so Lillian’s life is a done deal. And this gets me to thinking about the other Lillians out there, still living, still choosing.

Who knows how Emmylou found my house which is situated in northern Virginia, but she arrived on foot with nothing but a bottle of water and a 6-string Gibson strapped around her shoulder. It was hot that day, so the first thing she did was take a swig of water before speaking.

“I hope you don’t mind my stopping by, but I heard you like my song.” She held out her long, sturdy hand to shake mine. To say I was dumbfounded would be a half description. There was no connection of any dots going on upstairs. What in the world? Emmylou Harris?! I reached up to futz with my hair, glanced at my patio which needed a sweeping.

Then my brain revved up and suddenly I felt curious. The dots were connecting.

“It’s nice to meet you, Emmylou,” I responded, and took her hand like a gracious host. “But how did you find me? How do you even know about me?”

“Dear, you’re in the news,” she answered. “They’re saying maybe my song put you in a weird state of--what did they call it? Repetitive Song Disorder? I told myself: if that’s true, I’ve got to see if I can help this poor girl.”

I giggled. I’m fifty-six years old, so being referred to as a girl is not something I often hear, but then I noticed the singer’s well-lived face, hands, and body. I couldn’t imagine all the life she’s seen, much more than I ever will.

“Oh Emmylou. That’s sweet of you, but I’m just fine. I love your song, that’s all, even if it’s a hard song.”

That’s when it occurred to me, I could ask her about Lillian. If anyone would know, it would be Emmylou. “So, hey,” I said, “Since I have you here, what can you tell me about Lillian? Why did her life become so hard? Didn’t she have any support at all?”

This is when Emmylou took a seat, and we began to talk about Lillian. I knew that Lillian’s brother’s death in the Vietnam War was a catalyst for a downward spiral many endured back then. My own father, now an old man, still has a catch in his throat when he mentions the kids who died under his watch in the jungle there. Recently I visited a small hometown museum in Pennsylvania that offers a historical record of an old coalmining town near Scranton, PA. Much of it is centered around the various wars the young men from the town fought in, some never coming home. There are high school yearbooks with memorial pages dedicated to the recent graduates whose first and last stint was an ill-fated tour in Vietnam. I try to imagine what it must have felt like for the families like Lillian’s. How would I feel? What would I do?

“I wish Lillian had run into just one person who might have taken her under their wing and helped her through” I said. “Just a small rock for her to stand on.” Emmylou nodded because I think she wished this, too.

Then suddenly, out of the corner of our eyes, we noticed her walking around the far corner of my yard. Lillian.

You wouldn’t have believed it, and I didn’t, nor did Emmylou, yet we knew somewhere in the tiniest sliver of intuition hanging deep in the well of us that this crouched woman in a simple blue dress was Lillian. She took an eternity to totter over to the chair next to mine. As she approached, I could see her face wasn’t as set back and weighted as I had assumed. Rather, it was lifted and open. Her body language seemed like a blossom, as if it was directed toward hope. Her fingers curved painfully in, the one hand clutching the cane she used to steady herself. Their distortion seemed to be the only obvious relic of her hardships. She came to a stop in front of Emmylou and me. We couldn’t take our eyes off her.

“I was given many wings,” she finally said to us with a resolute candor. “I’ve had many such rocks.”

I was bewildered. How was this possible? A woman from a song who succumbed to her woes standing on my patio.

“I was given many rocks since your song filtered out to the world, Emmylou,” Lillian said to the singer. “Strung like stepping stones. Everyone who sings that song has given me hope and gratitude that my life had been worth something. It brought about a love that I always knew was out there, somewhere, and I thank you.”

Emmylou and I just stared.

Nobody said anything for a while. I didn’t know what was going on in Emmylou’s mind, but a shared feeling of sadness mixed with wonder mixed with peace passed over our group. Not to bring up the animals, but even they had creeped over to the patio and were standing there in curious awe. They knew that Lillian wasn’t supposed to exist, but there she was with her message anyway. The fox inched closer to let her pet him, a move that shouldn’t have existed either.

I couldn’t imagine for the life of me why this woman was here. For that matter, why was Emmylou? Really and truly? Was this a fateful encounter, a strike of flint against steel, that might spark a needed message out into the world?

Lillian suddenly realized with a startle she was petting a fox. “Oh heavens! Why is this fox here?” she asked. The raccoon took this as an invitation to move toward her, too.

“These two?” I said, waving my hand off. “They just think you have lunch.” We all laughed. The sun moved behind a cloud and a breeze trickled through. My cats yawned and stretched.

This is when I adjusted my guitar on my lap and started to play.

Me and my best friend Lillian

And her blue tick hound dog Gideon

Sitting on the front porch

Cooling in the shade

Singing every song the radio played

Emmylou joined in, and then Lillian, then the animals began to hum. Nobody howled. Nobody cried. Nobody felt sorry or sad. Nobody feared loneliness or grief. Instead, we all sang with community in our hearts and voices. On the one hand, it felt so completely natural, and on the other, a complete fiction. Of course, I knew it was both.

When the song finished, and my campfire playing strummed to a close, I stood up from my chair and patted my kitties on the top of their tiny gray heads. I looked around and saw I was alone otherwise. Everyone was gone, either vanished into thin air or slunk away into the woods, depending. That’s when I knew it was all in my mind, a figment. I hoisted up the guitar into my arms and turned to go when I noticed the half full water bottle on the table. My eyes bulged. It couldn’t be!

I looked down at the kitties in disbelief. They looked up, winked, and then slowly sauntered away. I watched them as they disappeared around the front of the house. I shrugged to myself. Life is knowable to an extent, but sometimes you just never really know what it'll bring. It's good to accept the gifts when they come.