Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs at the Grammys were singing Fast Car, and suddenly I was bawling my eyes out. What was that? And why then? In the countless times I have heard that song, including when I bought the vinyl back in the ’80s, I don’t think I ever really heard it the way I did watching at that moment. Me at 65 was hearing something very different from me at 30. Perhaps growing older, and growing up, helps us to become more present with and less scared of our feelings? Maybe it was the show itself, which was an all-ages extravaganza.
As past AGEIST cover profile John Loken, who was there live and helped produce the show, put it, “I think one of the reasons the Grammys still resonates with younger audiences, 66 years in, is because it honors that sacred bond between fan and artist. Popular music has always traced the line between reality and our dreams. So, when 80-year-old Joni sang, ‘I really don’t know life at all’ on Sunday night, and cracked a knowing smile at the audience, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.” Some notable past award shows — remember the slap? — have famously completely run off the rails, but not this one. The whole show beamed positivity. It felt like a mutually supportive village; people celebrating each other, cheering each other on, rather than a competition — humanity showing its best when we are creative and supportive across age, race and gender lines.
It is not just powerfully sublime performances like these that get me; Ted Lasso just kills me. I’ll be in a puddle of tears, guaranteed pretty much each episode. There will be some moment I see something, even on social media, and then suddenly I am bawling. This simply did not happen in my 20s. The only thing I can think of is that now I have come to understand that these feelings won’t kill me, that it is ok to have them, and maybe even express them. Like so many things in life, experience has informed us that most of what we fear is just not real, that we are much stronger than we think we are, and it was actually our self-fear that had been handicapping us from more fully experiencing the wonders of being who we are.
Onward and upward,
David