Penny and Sparrow – Need You

My Treasure Chest of Friendship

(Listening to this song while you read, is strongly encouraged)

For almost two years, I have been listening to Need You, by Penny and Sparrow. It is the third track on their January 2022 album, Olly Olly. The entire album has played over and over and over… Need You, has been repeated the most by far. It’s story dancing in my ears, wrapped in spells of musical beauty, and it has been so good for my soul.

I knew I would write about this song almost immediately, but I wasn’t sure what it was trying to help me see, so I decided to just wait and enjoy its beauty.

A song will let you know why you need it, when it is time for you to know why you need it.

Music is therapy, it soothes me, it is a place I find wisdom in.

A song is a piece of a songwriters soul floating through the webs of the universe, sowing its magic, hoping it soars…  

When I was ready, Need You told me about friendship. It sang of my longing for something just like this…

 

I moved around a lot when I was growing up, and outside of my family, I do not have a single friend from my childhood. I remember so many times thinking that this would be the one that I would talk to for the rest of my life, but it never happened. My dad would find his next dream and we would move, and their part in my story was over.

I didn’t move around as much as an adult, but my ideology did. It moved with each decade and with it, my friends. A friendship based on like ideology is a shallow well that dries up before you ever quench that thirst.

Friendship can follow your financial success, or your failure, the number of friends I had when I was making six figures compared to the number I had when I had to go to the food bank to eat is a stark example. Things like that can make you give up on friendship… I never did.

Listening to this song gave me a moment to open parts of my soul that I have kept closed for decades. It has been like finding an old wooden chest covered in dust. It took some work to get the lock open but what I found inside is astounding. I found so many pieces, from so many friendships and I wept at the richness of my life.

There are little pieces from that one room school house I went to first grade in… Miss Palodichuk in particular…

All of the pieces I have from the very first time Robbi came home, she was my first friend.

There are so many pieces from that little eastern Washington town… all of those friends that I thought would be there for ever… Every piece they gave me is still right where it should be…

I have this precious pile from all of the beautiful souls that I encountered working in education. I am forever changed from exchanging little bits with all of you.

Right where I needed them in my silly life… that is how bad I need all of you…

Friendships can be just for a season, you may need that person for a time and when that time is past, your stories take you on different paths. I know that we could talk all day about the varied reasons that friendships move on. We could get very wrapped up in the mechanics of why that happened, and it could devolve into how shallow one was and so on. It might just be the end of that season. The seed they gave me and the one I gave them has sprouted and it might need to find a different angle of the sun so it can grow. But even after that season is past, I still need them, I need that piece they gave me, it is part of the color of my story, and I won’t give one thing back.

Here is the thing about friendship… you meet someone, a colleague or maybe just someone on the street. There is a connection, a moment.. an exchange… That is all a friendship needs and it doesn’t matter if it lasts for ten seconds or ten years… When someone gives you a piece of themselves, you get to keep that forever.

There is something truly beautiful about being around people that get you. You don’t have to explain your translucent skin or your really shitty eyesight. They read things for you and they let you give them your weird wisdom… I have so many beautiful people that I love so much. Each one is a voice in the harmony of my life, and I am better for knowing them.

My best friend Susan, she gets all of me. She lets me copy how she breaths… I won’t give one thing back. We will follow each other forever…

This song tells the story of a beautiful friendship. One of those I always romanticized and wished I had. I have spent an embarrassingly large amount of time in my life complaining that I never kept friends growing up. Listening to Penny and Sparrow sing of this friendship where you get help breathing and you’ll never give one thing back, I realized I do have that. I am rich with that…

I have taken some time writing this… to sit in this moment and let the magic of this music teach me all it has to offer. When I think about evaluating a friendship based on a measure of linear space spent together It seems rather silly. It doesn’t matter if I know you for a week or for twenty years, your contribution is just as important and all of those little pieces we exchanged are part of who I am today and I would not give one thing back.

I relish the joy of being adopted into my wife’s friendships, ones she has had since kindergarten. When we met it was a foreign concept to me, and I have marveled at their depth of relationship and love, it is exactly what she needed to be the beautiful human she is today. Just like my collection of friends is exactly the pieces I needed to be me.

Andy and Kyle are Penny and Sparrow and I really don’t know a lot more about them, except for their crazy good harmonies and their crazy good music and their crazy good lyrics… They are true wizards… I have listened to everything they have done, so we are friends. Olly Olly is worth listening to thousands of times and more. I am so grateful for Andy and Kyle putting this into the universe. It is the piece I needed just right now…

I am at a place in my life where I can really dig into the moments. I am not in a hurry to achieve, I have been there, and I did do that. I am content to look into my own soul and write about what I find.

I am finding an immeasurable amount of joy in the friends I have from my gig at your neighborhood grocery store. Some of them are generations away from me, but the richness of their contribution is awe inspiring. I never expected this, I have been fairly ignorant of my good fortune most of my life. But here I am, standing in this moment and knowing how badly I need all of you. The friends I have known, and the ones I have yet to make.

Humanity is so beautiful, it is kind and has enough love to quench any fire. We have to remember that. There is more than enough hate and cynicism to wash it all away, but I have hope, my hope is in my friends and that chest full of friendships……

Music is a superpower for me, this blog is my attempt to try and understand some of that, it is also an attempt to give you some hope. I have hope because there are other weirdo’s like me out there and I am grateful for every one of you.

Create… unleash your wildest idea… when we let our creative energy run wild, the world is better.

Thank you, Penny and Sparrow, for letting these bits out into the universe…

Cherish your moments, they will go past you unannounced. Be less worried about what you achieve and far more interested in who is out there to achieve it with, you need them. When you get those walks at the dog park, the lunch over ramen and the stroll through your own downtown, hold onto that windows rolled down and everything is alright feeling, it is real and it will help you fly. I am flying, no matter what the day throws at me, I am flying and it is in no small part due to the chest of friendships I found, thanks to this beautiful song.

Listening, learning, and growing