Pete Seeger died on Monday. When I read it on my Facebook feed the next morning in bed,
my sunken “Oh…” caused Dan to roll over and ask what happened. My sadness was for him, my
sweet Pete Seeger-loving husband.
I searched for the gentlest way to say it.
“What?” he asked again, some urgency to his voice now.
A similar thing happened six months ago. I gasped and Dan had said, “Pete
Seeger?”
I’d shaken my head---“No, bud. It’s Toshi.”
This time it was
Pete Seeger. And Dan and I lay in
bed a little longer hugging because of it.
I didn’t really know my husband until he brought me to Pete
Seeger’s 90th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden in
2009. We’d been together eight
years by then.
My husband is a shy man. He’s not just introverted, although he’s that as
well. I heard a writer say once
that she sits inside all day writing alone, occasionally looking out at her
husband who works their farm all day alone, and understands that they need the
same things in life. In this way,
they are together. In this
way, Dan and I are together.
But when we do venture out to be around others, he is shyer
than I am. It’s a trait that has
caused me some frustration over the years. More than once I’ve had to wait for him to drink enough wine
in order to dance with me at a wedding.
When a waiter comes to our table, h/she often directs all questions my
way due to Dan’s deference to me (which often takes the form of a lack of eye
contact). He is not rude or
remotely unkind, my husband. He is
shy. Though there have been times
when his shyness has felt to me like withdrawal from the world, cynicism even,
and it troubled me. (I’ll also mention here that he is the funniest person I
know…and almost everyone I know is funny.)
I remember warning my sisters and friends that they wouldn’t
really have a sense of Dan until the third or fourth time they were around
him.
Apparently, it took me eight years.
I knew long before that concert that Dan was not just a fan
of Pete Seeger’s music, but that he had also been moved powerfully by what Pete
Seeger had done with it. What Pete
Seeger had used his banjo to do.
But I can’t pretend I got it, especially at first. Dan would play “Beans in My Ears” and
“Rye Whiskey” on long car rides and I’d beg him to “Please turn off the
friggin’ Raffi!”
He’d say, “Do you hear how he’s saying Alby Jay?” and
explain how Seeger was singing about Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) not listening to
anti-war protestors and I was like, “That’s awesome, now can we please listen
to my music?” and then I’d put on Ani
DiFranco.
I was 20 (when we started dating) and didn’t know that
because of Pete Seeger there was Ani DiFranco. I’ve never considered myself
sophisticated or even knowledgeable about music. To a desert island I’d bring a Jackson Five best-of and the
soundtrack to A Chorus Line. Despite my poor taste, I can listen to
and enjoy almost anything.
But when Dan first introduced me to Pete Seeger, I didn’t
get it. I didn’t get the sound. This
wasn’t the case with all folk music.
Ani’s ferocious striking of her guitar strings had been helping me work through anger since I was a teenager.
The sound of Joni Mitchell's voice had helped me figure out what was below that anger.
“Good Night, Irene”?
Nothing.
But Pete Seeger meant something to Dan. When we talked about our funerals, he
told me he wanted “Well May The World Go” played at his. So I tried to understand.
He told me how
Pete cleaned up the Hudson River.
How he’d been blacklisted and the FBI kept a file on him. How he still stood on street corners in
upstate New York where he lived holding anti-war signs. I still preferred listening to The Sound of Music soundtrack (movie version of course), but I loved
how much Dan loved Pete Seeger.
I loved how much he loved teaching me about the
music. He told me about Lead Belly
and The Weavers and Woody Guthrie.
I asked which songs Pete wrote, which ones he sang, trying to get the
facts straight. And Dan told me
about “Turn, Turn, Turn” (“From
the Forrest Gump soundtrack?” I
asked) but then explained that it wasn’t just about who wrote what song. That folk singers, Pete Seeger
especially, just wanted the music to be played or sung, ideally in the company
of plenty of others who would leave their mark or verse on a piece of
music.
By then I understood that Pete Seeger was what real heroes
are made of and I loved Dan for having such a worthy one. For Christmas I surprised him with a banjo
and Pete Seeger’s instructional book on how to play. In the car, Dan would take my hand to his heart after I’d
surprise him by chiming in with an “English is Kuh-ray-zee” or sing about how
“my get up and go has got up and went.”
I had warmed to it, but I still didn’t understand how Pete
Seeger’s music--how the happy sound of a banjo--had been such a powerful
tool.
That is, until Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday
concert. This is when I got
it. When I saw my husband--my shy
Dan, whose hands I’ve had to hold around my waist in order to keep him from
escaping a hug he’d felt I’d held too long in public--not just clapping, not just
dancing, but singing along loudly to
the songs performed by Pete Seeger and the 51 other musicians who played that
night. Dan’s eyes were like a child’s when Pete Seeger came out. I was in my seat watching the stage when
I turned and saw that my Dan was already up on his feet singing. I looked around, wanting to say to
someone, “Are you seeing this? He
doesn’t do this.”
But of course everyone was doing it. These were Pete’s
instructions. That we stand up,
that we sing along, harmonize.
That we participate.
Dan barely sat during the whole four and a half hour
concert. He pointed everyone out
to me, my education continuing. “That’s Arlo. That’s Joan Baez. That’s Richie Havens---he opened Woodstock.” My angry (well, “Not Angry Anymore”) Ani
DiFranco sang “There’s a Hole in the Bucket” with Kris Kristofferson. And I saw
that the night wasn’t about any one musician’s performance--not even Pete
Seeger’s. It—he--was about the music and the
message. While perhaps not a
sloop, something incredible was built by all the voices that came together
during that concert. And I finally
understood Pete Seeger’s power.
Prior to this, I had struggled to reconcile Pete Seeger’s
kind voice and demeanor, the merry sound of his banjo, with the sort of subversive
reputation Dan told me he had earned.
But that night I understood that it wasn’t just the lyrics and subjects
of the songs he sang that had gained him that reputation. His music brought people together and
said it was okay—essential--to hope and reach for change and justice. Pete
Seeger was dangerous because he believed in people. Strap a banjo around his neck, and this belief spread. I saw it happen all around me that
night.
And I saw that my Dan’s shyness was protecting--or maybe
just disguising--his own dangerous, hopeful heart. The man singing beside me was no cynic. I learned that for certain that night. He believes in a kind of hope that many
are too scared to let themselves feel.
He believes in people. He’s
shy and he’s as brave as they get.
When I told Dan about Pete dying, he was stunned, numb. I think he thought at first that I was
going to tell him that something had happened to Katie and so the loss of his
hero, which is of course different than the worsening illness of a family member
who lives downstairs, seemed a momentary relief of sorts. And then as Pete Seeger music played
through the house for the rest of the day, the sad reality hit my Dan. He didn’t take the day to be alone
though. Instead he made an apple
crisp for our family, a turkey sandwich for my niece’s lunchbox.
Throughout much of our relationship, Dan had talked about
wanting to write Pete Seeger a letter--a thank you--but he hadn’t let himself
do it and was worried he would miss his chance. For his birthday a couple of years ago I went to a print
shop and had a pad of stationary made up.
Around the border ran the words “This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces
it Surrender”--the same words that circled Pete Seeger’s banjo. I set the paper
at his desk with a pen and a stamped envelope addressed to a P.O. Box for Pete
Seeger I had found online. Dan
sent Pete Seeger his thank you.
This is mine.
I have heroes.
Dan is one. I believe
he could change the world. That he
does it every day.
Thank you, Pete Seeger, for showing me that.
