Edith Piaf, Janis Joplin, and Sally

On my solitary desert walks, musing about the trip to come, I often find myself silently singing Edith Piaf (French) songs. Mary doesn’t remember that during one of the times we roomed together I bought a Piaf record and played it over and over, twenty times? Thirty? Enough so that the voice was imprinted on my memory along with the words, even the ones I couldn’t translate.

Years after that – twenty? thirty? – Thrim bought me an Edith Piaf cd and I played it over and over, thrilled to hear her again. It is now downloaded into iTunes and onto my MP3.

My favorite Piaf lyrics are all about love. “Dans l’amour il fait des larmes.” “Love requires tears,” and she has cried enough tears to deserve to love again. In her voice you can hear all the pain she has been through to reach that point. “Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regretted rien. C’est payee.” “No, not a thing. No, I don’t regret anything. It is paid . . .” and now she can go on to a new love.

Sorry, I know she’s in my head, but not in yours. How about Janis? Can you hear Janis Joplin? Stand up, all Janis fans, and remember “Take it! Take another little piece of my heart, now, baby, Take it!” or Down on Me. “Looks like everybody in this whole wide world, is down on me!”

In that raspy voice is all the pain, the agony, the exuberance, the in-your-face I-have-LIVED energy that Janis threw out to her audience until there was nothing left to give.

Janis and Edith thrill me. Opera singers – Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne, Jessye Norman, Renee Fleming, etc. – thrill me because they are also using their entire bodies and souls to convey to me, the audience, the feeling of their songs [arias, in opera speak].

Much as I love them, I can’t take the opera ladies on my walks. Their music and sound is way too difficult for my brain to memorize the way I can memorize the music of Janis and Edith.

Last week I stayed overnight with my sister Sally, a highly successful musician/writer. I needed to be reminded what it’s like to be in civilization. A whole blog could be written about Sally – maybe later – but for now it’s enough to say that as we drove down Ventura Blvd in her Jaguar on our way to meet Mimi and Colin at the Thai restaurant, Sally’s cd of stories played and I was crying with glee at her irreverent wit, the skill with which she turns phrases, and her voice that conveys a slew of types of people from southern belles to convicts to you name it.

Without divorce in the world, I wouldn’t have Sally. Without divorce, she wouldn’t have had all the men problems that inspire her writing, both in stories and songs. Janis, Edith, Sally. Women make glorious art out of pain.

Still, for me, Thrim and I are heading into our 40^th year. He is one in a thousand, fine with me running off for five weeks with Mary, a widow, because he understands that this 50-year anniversary is important to me.

Do I feel guilty about it? Yeah, sure. But I’ve got Edith Piaf singing in my head, Janis Joplin wailing to go ahead and take it, and Sally telling me she admires my courage! Imagine that! I feel more selfish than courageous, but I’ll take it. Yes, I will!