By Belynda, July 11th, 2009 in Other | 5 Comments
Tags: ani difranco, boardinghouse park, dream concerts, folk music, lowell ma, lowell summer music series
There’s something thrilling about a favorite artist going on tour. The excitement of ordering tickets, waiting-waiting-waiting for the day, even filing into the venue and listening for the stray notes of a soundcheck.
THEN there’s one of your all-time favorite artists coming to do a show two streets over from where you live. Ed and I got treated to a very rare event tonight. Ani DiFranco came to town to play the Lowell Summer Music Festival at Boardinghouse Park in Lowell, Ma. Boardinghouse is a little gem in the middle of our city, a gorgeous grassy place not much bigger than a high school cafeteria, with a large, leafy arbor and a killer lighting and sound system. Every show is packed to the gills with lawn chairs and blankets, strollers and little ones dancing around their parents, and the feeling is always breezy and intimate. The rain that’s been hanging around all summer took pity on us, and held of *just* long enough to let us all enjoy the show, and even get back to our cars. A few stray flashes of lightning were more exciting than ominous.
Ani took the stage in her usual style, diminutive size and understated fashion belying a BIG voice and strong guitar and vocals. She’s known for strong opinions and confessional songwriting as well, a real “people’s rockstar.” She opened with a familiar favorite, “Anticipate,” and got the crowd geared up for a powerful show, and moved on “Fuel” where she playfully got back in stride after skipping a verse. Interspersed in between new songs and old, she threw in some stories about her recent domestic bliss: a new husband this past winter, the joys of raising a baby in her terrible twos, her enthusiasm for the election and tears of happiness at the election of President Obama. Of our new President, she said “I don’t know how you grow up to be Barack Obama, but I’m grateful someone did.”
Her recent music, collected in the album “Red Letter Year,” reflects this change from punk alternative folk-rocker and roaming musician and lover, to the more grounded feelings of domesticity and motherhood (not, of course, abandoning the off-beat view of the world and our place in it.) She dedicated songs to her husband (”The Wedding Song”) and baby (”Present/Infant”), each of which reflecting how their influence in her life has changed her for the better. Ani DiFranco teaches with her music as much as she entertains, and her new focus on the happiness found in simplicity and home is no exception. “If you’re not getting happier as you get older, you’re fucking up.” she says in one song so new it doesn’t even have a name… and you know what? She’s positively right. The interesting thing about confessional songwriting, is seeing the journey the artist is on through their art. From “Red Letter Year”, it seems DiFranco is going somewhere good.
The best part of the night for us was being treated to not one but TWO of our absolutely favorite songs as encores. After getting the crowd to its feet with “Fire Door”, Ani returned to the stage to cheers and whistles to leave Lowell with “Both Hands” and “32 Flavors”. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect set if you mailed in a request form yourself. All in all, a very special treat from an artist that has been a staple in our house and our cars since all those years ago in high school.
By Belynda, May 21st, 2009 in Other | No Comments
Tags: ani difranco, family, gibran, love, marriage, real love
“And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.” - Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”
Eddie and I were talking tonight, and we started talking about how marrying someone is choosing that person to be your family (in the wake of a fun-filled day of Nelson family antics). If you do it right, you’re choosing that person forever. As Ani Difranco says “And when we signed up for forever, we had no idea it was in years.”
It made me think of Nonna and Papa, Ed’s late grandparents. If I could have any kind of marriage, it would be modeled after theirs. They met young, married young, and had a child that was the sun and the moon to them. They were blessed with a wonderful daughter-in-law (now my wonderful mother-in-law), and two grandsons whom never failed to make them proud. In return, they never failed to let them know. They celebrated a golden wedding anniversary, and even in the twilight of their lives, still held in their hearts the one person who was their True North- Papa used to talk to Nonna in his sleep after she’d passed on. They will forever be carried in my heart as the quintessential “little old Italian married couple.” I am lucky enough to have had their example. I now wear Nonna’s engagement ring, which every day is a reminder of what we are working to build. If I could have a marriage like that, with three generations of love, a lifetime partner at my side, and a proud legacy to leave to my grandchildren, that would the one for me.
That is not to say they never had a fight, that they never said unkind words or went to bed angry. It’s not to say there weren’t days where they probably looked over their coffee cup at the family they chose, and gave solid consideration to running for the hills. Those aren’t things the grandkids ever hear about of course, and I’m sure there are things that never left the walls of Hancock Street. That’s the reality of the bond, though. Real marriages don’t come without the bumps and bruises. Those bumps and bruises are the balance by which to judge the times of love and harmony. They’re the barometer you use to measure what gives your life value, and lets you know that what you’re getting out is worth all that you’ve put in. Gibran didn’t write “When love beckons to you, follow him, because it’s going to be a breeze.” Nothing worth having ever is.
I’m happy to say that Ed and I have been blessed with mostly smooth sailing the past nine years (two of those as man and wife). I’ve written about the “small moments” in the day before, and how important they are. We crack each other up, listen to each other’s “bad day at the office” stories, get each other asprin and water when a headache comes on. We cut each other slack, and have a hard time saying no to the other (see Kittens and new Palm phones for further details). We’re off to a good start.
So even with bumps and bruises, the late nights and hard moments, I would still wish for a marriage like Nonna and Papa’s. They left behind something that most of us, especially in our youth, simply cannot comprehend. The trick is realizing it as your living it, and striving every day to make something worthy, something that your grandchildren will aspire to.
