Me and the Best of the Indigo Girls

My hubby bought me a present for my birthday, a DVD called Indigo Girls: Live at the Roxy. We’ve been so busy lately so it’s taken awhile, but we finally sat down to watch it late last night. By the time we snuggled on the couch together it was just me, the hubby, the dogs, and my diet pepsi.

I’m not usually a night owl. Caffeine was required!

This was a perfect gift because I love the Indigo Girls. I have a very selective list of My Favorite Music…and they’re at the top.

The other night I had a dream that Amy Ray stopped by. I guess she was in the neighborhood and wanted to say hello. Don’t you love it when things like that happen in your dreams? I was a bumbling fool telling her how much I loved their music.

Good thing it was just a dream. I hate looking like an idiot in real life.

For those of you who haven’t met me yet, that’s a joke. I think I spend half of my time looking like an idiot and the other half either trying to explain or accept it.

My hubby  helped me expand my previously monolithic taste in music. Now my musical horizons include some soulful blues like Catherine Russell, or folsky rock like Brandy Carlile, and even some harder stuff like the Foo Fighters and Rush.

But I always find my way returning to the Indigo Girls. Maybe it’s because I was introduced to their music at an age when I was looking for something more in my life. The guitar-toting duo showed me through passionate lyrics and intertwining harmonies about caring for the people around us and finding our way through grief and love.

I don’t think it’s possible to hear the Indigo Girls without wanting to pick up a guitar. So I credit them, along with my brother, for inspiring me buy my first guitar.

I think it’s understandable that the thing that attracts you to your first guitar would be its color. I loved the variation of blue hues in this Ibanez and the price was just right for a beginner.

Most professional musicians you see singing and strumming make it look so easy. The Indigo Girls are no exception. What’s amazing about learning guitar for yourself, is getting past how utterly hard it is. No one tells you that the strings bite into the tips of your fingers like a a two-year old with new teeth. You have to work to develop callouses, and those don’t last forever.

But it’s a great excuse to not do the dishes. Water and callouses don’t mix well!

I met my hubby over a guitar, and it didn’t take him long before he introduced me to his favorite brand, Taylor. That’s what we both play now. That means my old blue guitar isn’t getting played much these days. Adee plays it sometimes, but she’s usually busy with her cello.

So my old blue guitar has gotten good at gathering dust. But it’s still beautiful…at least to me.

Here are some of the lyrics that I consider to be The Best of the Indigo Girls!

• I’m up on an airplane, nearer my god to thee, I start making a deal, inspired by gravity
• I’m looking for someone who can take as much as I give; Give back as much as I need, you know, and they still have the will to live
• Oh how I wish I were a trinity, so if I lost a part of me, I’d still have two of the same to live
• There I am in younger days, star gazing, painting picture perfect maps, of how my life and love would be. Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection, my compass, faith in love’s perfection, I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen
• And I say love will come to you, hoping just because I spoke the words that they’re true, as if I’ve offered up a crystal ball to look through, where there’s now one there will be two
• Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh; start at the top go full circle round, catch a breeze take a spill; and ending up where I started again makes me wanna stand still
• Oh, you were so baroque, all of those words, just to tell me no
• Everything once up in the air has settled down, sweep the ashes, let the silence find us, A moment of peace is worth every war behind us.
• The best thing you’ve ever done for me is to help me take my life less seriously, it’s only life after all!

Now I’m off to find some new music to love, and to listen to some of the oldies that know me so well. Maybe I’ll dust off that old blue Ibanez and try to play along too.