Sketchbook #2:

Too many people hate country music.

But if you’ve lived it, if you’ve had too many beers as the sun falls on vast golden fields, and you’ve fired gunshots into the infinite night while a bonfire blazes in the background, then you understand.

There is undeniable truth in that music.

A banjo can sound like unrequited love. A fiddle can be foreplay. Drive up and down the old main drag and let the humidity get the better of you. Wear a dress that sparkles and clings just so and take a person by the hand and show them how to two-step. And when that person’s tongue is in your mouth and their hand is gripping your hip and you can smell whiskey in the air and you can laugh like you goddamn mean it, then you tell me country music sucks. Tell me this stuff doesn’t matter.

I’ll be happy to show you the old tire swing or the horse pen or the lazy river or that old bent tree where the light shines and refracts like Heaven. I’ll be happy to kiss you in the dead leaves and the smell of wet hay and when you fall in love with me... think of the music. Lean way back and listen.