It was a cold damp winter and I was living in a drafty old ranch house not far from Davenport. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived though it was an otherwise fraught time. The Marin tech start-up that had been employing me folded the same month the lease was up on a shared rental. At the same time, my dad’s health had taken a final turn for the worse. My brother had a lead on the old ranch house through his work. I could live there while I figured out my next paycheck. It was a boon in many ways — It was a good time for me to live closer to home and I had a killer view of the Pacific Ocean — and challenging. While I had plenty of company in the form of the raccoons who came into the laundry room at night, the peacocks who lived in the barn and the rat that kept trying to build a nest in the stove, I was alone a good chunk of the time. Here I was, hoping to make a big push with my writing and singing and life was being…life. In spades.
What I did have was a cassette tape of Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels On a Gravel Road, which I listened to nearly constantly that year. Change a few words of those first two verses and it added up to my life:
Sittin' in the kitchen, a house in
Macon[in Santa Cruz]Loretta's[Lucinda’s] singing on the radio
Smell of coffee,eggs and bacon[oatmeal and hay]
Car wheels on a gravel roadPull the curtains back and look outside
Somebody somewhere I don't know
Come on nowchild[sister], we're gonna go for a ride
Car wheels on a gravel road
What music moves you is so much about timing and place. William’s now -iconic Car Wheels record — as well as Essence, which came out the summer after my damp winter on the coast — helped me through a few tough years. Both that time, as well as listening to her music, helped me become an artist.
Flash-forward a couple of decades. Feeling a bit discombobulated coming home after time away last week, I started reading Williams’ new memoir “Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir.” I immediately felt the same solace I did listening to those two records all those years ago. Like a good friend, her book is raw, real and unflinching, honest, self-accepting and funny. I found myself guffawing out loud reading lines like such as “People fuck people. Whatever. Who cares?” and amazed by her brazenness. She names names without fear, writing so conversationally, I was certain that she had maybe dictated the entire thing, but it turns out she wrote it all out by hand. Mostly, I’m happy, and grateful, she’s continued to write, both songs, and now books. Thank you, Lucinda Williams!