1997 Press Photo of Bill and Bonnie Hearne
I sometimes think the greatest disservice of many which has been done to women is the writing, recording and endlessly repeating of romantic songs. The Top 40 no longer exists as a radio program but the songs it offered bleat off supermarket sound systems and repeat in my head when it’s vacant, which seems to me a good deal of the time.
“Every time we say goodbye” was on my supermarket sound system this morning, and it almost prodded me into making a most unwise phone call. But not quite.
Another song, current here, is Bill and Bonnie Hearne’s “New Mexico Rain,” written decades ago when we did have some rain, although this being the desert, it’s not what the state is known for. It’s one of my favorite Two Steps and its concluding line, “If I ain’t happy here, I ain’t happy nowhere” strikes me as scarily appropriate.
Like many women, it’s taken me most of my life to find “home” and I still have to put quotation marks around it. The homeless here and everywhere are for me symbolic of our homelessness as women, although we may have an adequate physical structure to live in. But an emotional home?
“Looking for love in all the wrong places…”
Well, maybe. But don’t those individuals who disappoint us bear some responsibility for their inadequacy?
I would even dare to say, A Lot of Responsibility.
For who grows up in this tough world without realizing, long before middle age, that we humans are all responsible for each other, not just in a crisis (most are up to that, at least briefly) but during the daily grind.
It seems likely that certain soothing phrases have entered our vocabulary and will stay forever: “I’m here for you…” “I feel your pain…”.
But are you really and do you really?
And what in the world do those two phrases mean?
These are rainy day slogans that pass along with the clouds.
It’s easy as a woman to grow cynical, even hard—but that doesn’t provide much of an answer. There’s a cheeriness in crowds, such at the Farmers’ Market here, which doesn’t boil down to much on an individual level.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. You hit the nail, succinctly, on the head with every sad point.
I listened to Bill and Bonnie Hearne’s song after I left a comment on this post. Word of that song and of them is a gift. Thanks.