It felt like periodic cicadas emerge from the ground more often than my wife and I get out from under the depths of childcare. So, we left our little critters with my mom for an evening and went out past our children’s bedtime. Hell, past our bedtimes when we can cuss freely without kids overhearing and parroting the words in front of their teachers.
We went to a restaurant where we actually had to wait for our food, where there were candles and not a birthday cake in sight, and where there were nice things on the table because there were no little hands to break them. No sippy cups or lids either; we had another adult beverage as we caught up with some dear friends.
After supper, we had tickets to see our friend Dawn Landes perform from her new album, “The Liberated Women’s Songbook.” Backed by her band and joined by several other talented singers, Dawn sang songs from the past 200 years that document the struggles faced primarily by women. From the antebellum South to the factories of the North to the Civil Rights Era, people faced injustice, poverty, and pain. At several points in the show, my wife and I were moved to tears. Yet, as Dawn said, there was always singing, and the music about such brutal times was beautiful. As one reviewer put it, these protest songs “work like a lead pipe covered with silk.”
After the inspiration from Dawn and her crew, the rain could not dampen our spirits. My wife and I splashed through the puddles to the parked car, our laughter spilling with each soaking step.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of “Little Big Moments,” a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and “Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems.” Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.
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