Proof that not everything sucks...

All day yesterday, the clip above popped up on social media. And all day long, I ignored it. I am not a huge music person (shh- don’t tell anyone) and I figured the clip was fine but nothing I needed to see. Thank goodness, my friend Beth shared it again today encouraging anyone who hadn’t made time yesterday to take the time to watch it today.

I sat in the kitchen half way through my first cup of coffee watching, listening and crying. The clip shows Joni Mitchell performing Both Sides Now, accompanied by Brandi Carlile. Every so often, Mitchell pauses and Brandi sings a few words almost as if she was getting Mitchell started again. The performance reminded me a bit of my days, ages ago, when I worked as a speech therapist with traumatic brain injury survivors. My patients, like Mitchell who suffered a brain aneurysm in 2015, could often be encouraged to speak with just a nudge, just a little bit to get them started. This is the kind of support that is provided in rehab facilities but how often do we see this kind of patience and care provided ‘in the real world?’

I wondered why this clip was sitting with me and the rest of the internet in the way it was so I asked Google that very question. And what came up were these words written by Inae Oh in Mother Jones. She writes, “Unequivocally good things don’t tend to happen these days. Moments so impervious to the horrors of modern day living that they manage to break the sense that everything sucks. But such an event arrived when Joni Mitchell appeared at the Newport Folk Festival this weekend for her first full set in over two decades.”

And that’s it. That is why people are watching these clips over and over again. It is a rare and joyful opportunity these days to be witness to things not sucking. To be witness to people, an entire crowd of people in fact, enjoying beautiful music yes but more importantly being patient and kind.

So here’s to more moments of the world not sucking :)