Tell Me A Story That’s True comes from the song, “Sit by the River” by the RFD Boys, a bluegrass band that plays at The Ark, a small music venue in downtown Ann Arbor. In September of 2019, my youngest daughter, Harper, and I got to hear them play at their 50th anniversary concert.
It was a night of stories and music. We ate popcorn from red and white striped boxes. My friend Jaime, who is the daughter of one of the band’s members, sang a duet with her dad on stage, a moment that was sweet and special and also one Jaime said she was a bit nervous about because singing harmony in front of an audience is different than singing in your living room. Harper got to go backstage and hang out with the band during an intermission. She came back smiling like she’d been let in on a huge secret.
“Sit by the River” is about a boy visiting his grandfather, and because of the decades and experiences that separate them, the grandfather wonders what it is he might offer the boy that might deepen the bond they have. How many toys, how many electronics, how much ice-cream does it take to do this kind of thing? The boy says, “tell me a story that’s true.” And so, the grandfather begins, and the song continues.
That night, though the calendar told us it was autumn, it was nowhere in sight. The air was sweltering and sticky. Some leaves had fallen but they were still green, and too soggy to sound-off a crunch. Only the wind tried for change, though it whispered summer, summer, summer, while it brushed passed Harper and I as we walked down the street. Knowing what I know now about the timing of this story, and the handful of weeks we had left until the word “unprecedented” would imprint itself on the season we’d find ourselves in, I should’ve whispered back to the wind that night. I should’ve told her I understand why she wants to hang on as long as she can.
I parked where I always park, on 4th and William. There is a fairy village on one of the corner’s of the parking garage - a fenced in nook with a church and a school. I think there’s a post office and probably a library. I’ve never seen fairies, but in wintertime there are twinkle lights, and come spring, when, in Michigan that means roaring wind and rainy days, I’ve seen tiny pinwheels spinning color into our murky days.
Usually Harper and I would stop to look at the village. We’d point out what’s been changed. We’d have a conversation about who changed it (the fairies, of course). Sometimes, we’d stand quietly, both of us finding ourselves in the stories we silently spun while we stared at this imaginary world in our town. That night though, we didn’t stop. I want to say it’s because the air was so thick with rain and both of us were sticky and gross and didn’t want to spend any more time outside than was necessary. This would be true, but what’s also true is that if Harper had been 7 or 8, no matter the weather, no matter the time of night, she would’ve insisted we stop to see about the fairies. She was not though, and the imagination that shows itself off in translucent wings and wands that sprinkle glitter, grows quiet and timid and I think stronger because the work of make believe for the adolescent - and for all of us who choose to use our imaginations - becomes a constant question in whether or not we want to bring what it is we think we have within us forth, and see about the harmony we can make: with each other, and with ourselves.
Tell Me A Story That’s True will be a place where I do what I’ve been doing since 2007: making a place for my imagination to live; giving what seems impossible wings, and standing back to watch her spread those wings, to try and fly.
