The Third Voice

Kristi Rose posted a comment on Facebook the other day, regarding the death of Jim Ridley of the Nashville Scene. I didn't know Jim Ridley of course, but it seems that he was much loved and his passing is a truly great loss on numerous levels, for his family with children not much younger than mine, his friends, for the Nashville Scene, the arts community, for Nashville, etc. She wrote:

Fats said, "He even understood about Al Flosso, The Coney Island Fakir. And we were going to talk more about him and all the world of magic. Oh...I guess that's a small thing. But I was looking forward to it."

No it is not a small thing. Jim Ridley made our world bigger and deeper and funnier and lighter.

Over and over that comment of Fats' has popped into my head in the last week and a half. I think it has stuck with me because yet again, it brings home the power of shared experiences and how those disappear when someone is gone. Of course it also made me go and look up Al Fosso, the Coney Island Fakir, but most of all, that wistful comment touched me in a way that other tributes could not have. I thought about it yesterday as I was marinating in the post show glow of Jason Ringenberg's concert. Because, yet again, even with people I just met that night, the shared experiences we had of a Jason and the Scorchers show, or a Gun Club song, or Mabel's back in its heyday, they create this other thing. You know how when two great singers harmonize, it becomes another voice, seemingly a third voice? Maybe that's it. Our shared experience becomes something of its own....and so it's a loss when one of us is gone, even though our own memory is still there of course.

I can't quite articulate it. I just know I'm grateful for those shared moments or memories or responses that I have had, with so many people, and I will try to savor and enjoy them while they are still shared.