A Dedication to Bon Iver

I recently discovered a band that I had never heard or heard of before. Their music was beautiful and inspiring, though sad--with a deep, lovely kind of sadness--and gave me the distinct feeling of "woodsiness." When I listened to the album, I could feel myself transported to a rickety, whitewashed porch in a pine woods, perhaps on a misty mountain, but definitely accompanied by a sub-band of crickets and bullfrogs. I could see a group of long-haired individuals, lit by Chinese lanterns and fireflies, plucking away on banjos and favoring a harmonica or two. And was that a crash of garbage can lids, perchance? I could almost see the guilty party with the black mask and ring tail waddling off into the deep woods with a trail of miniature selves behind. There are undertones to the album that call to mind Christmas carols, spirituals, hymns, music boxes, and more.

Then my friend told me that I would appreciate the romantic background story of Bon Iver, and I do! The musician, Justin Vernon, saddened by a break-up and the dissolution of another band, in addition to a severe illness of the liver, retreated to winter in a cabin in the Wisconsin woods for mental and physical recuperation. He named his "one man band" Bon Iver, from the French term meaning "good winter." That's optimism, for you! Although he had not planned to record or write music at the time, he had some recording equipment with him, as well as some old instruments. He recorded the album by humming tunes and setting words to them later. Where he lacked proper instruments, he fashioned them, apparently, of the items in his wintry cabin. The only thing he had wanted was seclusion and cold, and in his solitary season, he created Bon Iver. Please, check it out. The music is incredible, and unique. The mood can be felt through each song.

I wish I would have thought of this. I would sequester myself among the Spanish moss-covered trees of the south, lost in a purple, kudzu-draped mountain of mist. I would live in a one room house of worn, gray boards, whitewashed and re-splintered by weather, and perhaps have a gray cat, the color of dusk, for company. A dog would be both noisy and far too companionable for the occasion. I would sit on the sagging board porch, complete with my imagined lantern and fireflies, but then where would the music come from?

Music...ha. I'd end up listening to Bon Iver, wishing I was playing that music, and I'd write instead. But perhaps that would be the recipe for my unfinished novel...