Listening to Bluegrass Sad Songs and Humming Along
Posted: Sunday, December 12, 2010
by Liesl Garner
There is something about the strumming of a guitar, mandolins in the background, a mellow alto singing or humming, a whisky voiced singer telling his sad story, the only percussion a thumb or ball of a hand beating out a rhythm on the guitar, harmonicas joining in, and maybe a flute howling a sorrowful tune over and above it all. This is my music today. I am working overtime and every day until Christmas. I miss my kids. I want to be home decorating the house with them and making Gingerbread men, finding the spots that have snow and making snow angels. But I am here processing returns of really expensive shoes. Entering information in the computer, and sending customers emails that their cards have been credited so they can go out and buy something else.
All I know is that it’s foggy outside my window today, and there will be snow soon in the mountains near my house. As I sit at my desk processing returns, I tap a foot softly. My body moves to the music. It doesn’t feel like a normal day at work. There are only two of us here, and I am listening to my headset and swaying to the slow banjo music, twanging, sultry voices, or the slightly nasal sounds of a Willie Nelson tune. Is there anything better, really, than a cup of hot-spiced tea, and Willie Nelson? Truly!
We are in a different spot this year than we’ve ever been, and we are making the most of it, because that’s the kind of people we are – my husband and I. We look at the bright side, we find a way to shine up an old penny and see it as precious. My children find rocks in the back yard and think they are diamonds. My son picked a few of his favorites and sent them to his little girlfriend in California for Christmas – they’ve been dating since Kindergarten. The rocks he found in the yard, he packaged up for her with a note scrawled across the envelope he made for them out of red construction paper (because red is her favorite color) noting that “Here are some Cristl Dimonds for You!”
I am a little melancholy today. But that is a part of the holidays too, somehow. There is always a little bit of us that looks back to different times with fondness, maybe they were fuller times, maybe they were thinner times. Either way, we have memories of what we did to get through it all. And there are frosty glasses that look backward. There are rosy glasses that look forward to even better days. This year is just about the best year I can recall, because it is where we are, and we are here together, and we are mostly well, a little unbalanced, but that is how we like it.
Just now the piano has picked up and it’s a bit more of raucous party song about a cousin Rosco down in Dallas – with so much of a beat that I feel like standing up and dancing around. Is that a tambourine I hear? A little music to go with my overtime, weekend work, and I think I definitely feel like a little Elf with a whimsical gleam in my eye!
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)I think your child's gift to his little girlfriend is adorable. Sorry you can't be home, Liesl.Thanks, Jennifer! My husband keeps sending me little gems of precious moments he is sharing with them and photos! This is my year to put in the work at work, and they are putting in the work at home - ya know? We are in this together! That's what I love about it!
To have the Christmas spirit during the holidays is all you need to get through the hectic daysGood article Liesl
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