If only Joni Mitchell or Paul Lisicky had ever referenced dandelions in their work, this would be an even better photo to conclude my discussion of his book Song So Wild And Blue. If a dandelion exists in the work of either, I can’t find it. In my photo, the dandelion puff is a little out of focus anyway; such can’t be said about this homage to Joni’s music or to Paul’s account of his own development as a writer, from his early lyrics to his memoir and fiction. From first to last, this is a book about writing, about finding and using one’s authentic and sometimes painfully honest voice. In this part of his memoir, the pain is related to…
Spoilers behind the cut.
…the deaths of his mother, his best friend, his father, and the end of his long relationship with the poet, now referred to as “the Ghost.” The last sections of the book encompass Joni tribute concerts (those she’s part of, and at least one in which she’s in the audience) in a powerful circle back to Lisicky’s early appreciation of her art. Maybe just as gratifying to me is that the tentative personal relationship alluded to at the start of the memoir has circled back to this truth: An enduring relationship is filled with a shared soul language and a belief in ongoing possibility. This relationship has been a strong through-line to the memoir’s conclusion. Nobody’s living in the past here or mired down in things like regret, loss, disappointment, or betrayal. Those things can happen to us all, if we’re fortunate to have fully lived and loved. But we go on. Connection comes through what we share other than loss. What we love. What excites us. The Muse that inspires us. Our voices merge in a hymn to our faith in connection.
On connection: a story I love near the end. Paul goes online to get in queue to buy Joni concert tickets. He maintains the connection when he leaves to teach a class, full of anxiety that it will somehow all go wrong. Technology will thwart him. His moment comes when he and his students are still in class together. They laugh and clap when he successfully completes the transaction. Before they return to matters of the classroom, he texts Jude, to whom the memoir is dedicated, to give him the good news. They’ll be seeing Joni together.