It's Going to be Cool!

 

I have noticed over the years how themes recur in our lives, sometimes just when we need them.  The last few days have been like that.  I’ve been suffering a severe case of writer’s block, or whatever you want to call it.  I’ve started a dozen things, gotten stuck, started more things, stared at the computer screen and walked away. 
Sometimes it’s like that – a flood of words gives way to a period of drought.  As Willie Nelson says, sometimes you have to wait for the rain to fill up the well again. So, I resigned myself to waiting until something opened the sluice. 

I saw an interview with Ashley McBryde, just after her Grammy win.  The last question was an interesting one – if you could go back to a time in your life with the knowledge you have now, what would you say to yourself?  Obviously, she has already given this some thought because she has a pretty quick answer.  She mentioned learning guitar at age 9, and then she said, “I would go back to my 16-year-old self, when I was angry and frustrated and trying to figure out how I was going to do all this.”   She went on to say that she would not tell herself what was going to happen, but she would tell herself that it was going to be cool.  She would say that she was going to get a text from Reba McEntire and she wouldn’t say what it was about, but that it would be cool.  (Ashley had gotten a text from Reba saying congratulations on her Grammy.) I thought this was a great answer.  All 16-year-olds need to hear this – all teens are wrestling with their future.  They all need to hear that it’s going to be all right;  it’s going to be cool. 

Just a few days earlier, I saw the documentary just released about my great-aunt Ophelia, better known as Minnie Pearl.  Facing the Laughter looked at her life and her career and included a whole bunch of her peers who spoke kindly and emotionally about their memories of her.  Almost every single one talked about her advice and support and the love they shared.  Ophelia has been gone from this world for almost thirty years now, but they still treasure the things she brought to their lives.  What better legacy can you leave?  She grew up in a small town, in a family that had never had a member in show business.  They didn’t know exactly what to think when this plain little girl announced that she was going down that path.  It was an unusual and treacherous journey for a young woman, especially in the 1930’s and 1940’s.  But she never looked aside.  Her path diverged, from a career as a dramatic actress to a flamboyant country comic.  I wonder if she ever thought of those words of Robert Frost, “Two paths diverged … and I took the one less traveled by.”  She took what she thought was a road that was not her final destiny, a road that turned out to be just the right one for her.

Her childhood dreams came true in a way she didn’t expect, and she not only became famous, she became an inspiration and an encourager.  Amy Grant told the story of Sarah Ophelia Cannon speaking at her eighth grade graduation.  She said it was the first time she ever remembered a speaker turning around to directly address her and her classmates about their future and their dreams.  She said that with her attention to them, she made them feel “seen” and that they were important.  Years later, they met again, when Amy was becoming a star herself, and they became so close that she named her own daughter “Sarah.”

As I was thinking of all these things and trying to get them in some coherent form on paper, I saw a Facebook meme from a page I follow – “some of the best days of your life haven’t happened yet.  Keep going.”  I think this is advice Ophelia would have given.  And I think Ashley McBryde would embrace it too.  Two very different women from different generations who both have seen their dreams come true, in the same industry, on the same stage, but in very different ways and at very different times.

I was lucky to have a lot of people who encouraged my dreams and plans.  Even if they didn’t tell me in so many words, my family always made me feel I could do anything I set out to do.   They encouraged me to try things, and if they had private misgivings, they never let me see them.  I had teachers that encouraged me, even though they thought I was making a mistake when I chose marriage over college. 

I wish all young people had someone to tell them these things.  I wish someone would tell them to try all kinds of new things – to not be timid or unsure.  Not to worry about failing or not measuring up to perfection.  To keep searching for the thing that can ignite passion and bring joy.  I wish I could tell every sixteen-year-old to hang on - that it’s going to be cool.