Monday, January 7, 2008

With Friends Like This, Life Is Sweet



I have a very good woman friend who is one of those people you'd hate if she wasn't so joyfully wonderful. Her talents range from organizing and putting on a major folk festival every year to baking the most stunning and delicious wedding cakes you've ever seen or tasted. She also gardens, is incredibly smart, is wicked funny, dresses with a sense of style like no one else's, AND is beautiful. To top it all off, she's also a musician who plays what I guess we could call new grass, although recently she started writing her own songs which have sprung forth from her completely formed and amazing both lyrically and musically. In fact, she's already won several song-writing contests so I'm not just saying this because I'm blinded by love. She plays guitar, she plays banjo and fiddle and piano and probably about fifteen other instruments that I'm not naming here. But her true gift, in my opinion, is her voice.

She sings like an angel. I'm telling you, the woman can make you cry. Especially when she's singing one of her own songs.

Despite all her gifts, she's incredibly unassuming and modest. She certainly never says anything to the effect of I'm a musician and you're not, although if I were her, I definitely would.

But it's funny- no matter how close we are, when she goes onstage and begins to play, the fact that we share hearts, secrets, recipes, shoes, dresses, giggles, drinks, hopes and dreams- all of that fades away and suddenly, I am struck with awe and she is, for that time onstage, someone that I can barely look at. She is a creature of wonder and mystery to me.

Our joke is that when she goes on break, I can hardly speak to her. It's more truth than joke, however. I find myself tongue-tied and might as well be in the presence of Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan.

Anyway, I'm going to drive across the state tomorrow to see this friend and I'm really looking forward to it. She and her dear husband, who is also a fine musician and songwriter, live in a small house in the Florida scrub down near Gainesville and they are the perfect hosts. They are gracious and kind and go out of their way to make me feel at home and loved and I always do.

And now, to make it even more apparent how clearly superior this woman is to me, she's managed to have a grandchild and we'll be going to see him while I'm visiting.

So I'll be off in the great world, or at least a tiny corner of it, for a few days, visiting and being in awe and kissing a baby and listening to music, and I'm sure I'll come home a new woman, one determined and inspired to practice my own art and to strive to be the sort of person my friend is- one who brings light to the world and joy to the hearts of the people she loves.

Or at the very least, a woman who is even more intrigued with the idea of becoming a grandmother than ever. I'm certainly not about to develop any musical talent at this point in my life, nor am I about to start putting on folk festivals or baking wedding cakes and I'll never be, like my friend, beloved by thousands, but I'm lucky enough to have a friend who does and who is and with a little more luck, like her, one day I'll be a grandmama because all you need for that, thank God, is children.

You too can visit Lis, in the virtual sense anyway, by going to http://myspace.com/elisabethwilliamson
It's a trip worth taking.

4 comments:

  1. I bought her old Guild D55NT guitar a few years ago thinking that I'd get a extra boost in my playing with all her mojo. It didn't work for me (too big and too loud for a modest guy with small fingers) but I'm glad I had it for a bit.

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  2. Hey Dave! Nice of you to drop by!

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  3. Wow, thanks for turning me on to Elisabeth Williamson. Look forward to catching her performance at the Warehouse.

    Hope all is going well with you.

    Rich

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  4. Everyone should know about Lis. To know her is to love her. See you at the Warehouse!

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