Lying in the dark of my bedroom in my family’s Texas home, my middle school boyfriend and I exchanged Bob Dylan songs over text. “Girl from the North Country” was my favorite. His was “Boots of Spanish Leather.” He liked it because it was sadder, I think. And that seemed to me quite boyish. We kid ourselves of our kinship with the Lonesome Cowboy, all while hailing from the great suburbs of Houston.
Please see for me if her hair’s hangin’ long / for that’s the way I remember her best—I think of that line a lot. I thought of it in excess even then. In the awkwardness of my preteens, I had a heightened awareness of how fleeting my relationships would be. That the magic of my first kiss—when he held my hand and pulled me into a quiet hallway—would eventually dissipate and be replaced by unanswered messages after one bad date too many, thinking I’d have something interesting to offer if anyone bothered to ask. All this to say, my life has largely consisted of hoarding memories of moments still unfolding.
Greil Marcus writes about country musicians as mythic figures representing American culture. The reclusive drifter is one of the most enduring of these figures (Dylan and Hank Williams built entire careers on being “rolling stones”). More than a man, the drifter is a psychic truth that follows from the gross individualism I became accustomed to over time.Growing up, my mother used to say I had a high turnover rate in my platonic relationships. I loved deeply and all at once, and that would often lead things to fall apart as quickly as they came together. Maybe it was that same feeling of impermanence that made me eager to jump straight to intimacy only to escape unscathed before allowing myself to be misunderstood. It was sort of like hitchhiking on foot. I never asked for permanence, just for someone who would take a walk. Even where they might think I’m very strange.
Emotional hitchhikers by trade, Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley became a sanctuary for some of my most lonesome hours. They lived the myth of the drifter but displayed a solemn acceptance of their disconnection and heartache. With a palpable melancholia, they embraced both the transience of life and the value of love as ephemera.
After immigrating with my family in my late childhood, I moved from Houston to Boston, then to Los Angeles, before finally landing here in New York. But, in Foley’s words, wherever I’m goin' it’s the same place I been. Connection began to feel like labor that left me questioning whether it was worth investing so much energy in momentary understanding.
In my loneliness, I desperately wanted to embody the cool, untouchable romantic object of country songs—the angel of a woman with big brown eyes and hands made of heaven. But my own reclusiveness left me tethered to the Cowboy Drifter. Then I discovered Lucinda Williams and Joan Baez, who embodied the restless spirit and emotional aimlessness I often saw glorified in men. They didn’t exist solely in their relation to the Cowboy but were wanderers in their own right. And hitchhiking stopped seeming so boyish.
I’m still not sure what exactly it is I’m searching for—whether it’s to be loved or simply seen. But if country music has shown me anything, it’s that the memory can be enough. So maybe there’s no harm in just passing through.