This Love Affair: Jimmy Buffett
I don’t remember which one of “the girls” introduced me to Jimmy Buffett but it was one of them.
The girls. That was us. Me, Amy, Bethany and Laurie. It was the four of us against the world in high school.
Those girls were some of the great loves of my life. The years of friendship spent with them still, to this day, hold great meaning for me even though the relationships have long since ended.
I think it was Laurie who loved Jimmy Buffett first. Her older brother was probably into him and it trickled down to us. The four of us listened to Buffett in our cars riding around in the country. Buffett music and R.E.M. blared from boomboxes as we splashed in my parents’ pool.
We all had Spanish classes together and we all knew that my dream job was to run a bar in Cuba, so Jimmy Buffett music was a natural fit.
When I graduated high school I only received one official “graduation present.” The girls had pooled their money and bought me the Jimmy Buffett box set, on cassette. I’ve since replaced it with the CD version and have it all digitized now of course but I kept those tapes for the longest time just to look at.
As a grown up I can look at Buffett music with a bit more of a critical eye. I can acknowledge that maybe, possibly he is not quite a lyrical genius. But he sums up living for the moment, choosing the kind of life you want to live and wrapping yourself up in a moment better than most.
And when I hear “Death of an Unpopular Poet” I get a little weepy. And when I hear “The Weather is Here” I think of how hysterically we laughed. And when I hear “Margaritaville” I remember countless Wednesday nights at Puero Vallarta when inevitably a frat boy would request Margaritaville from the mariachi band.
When I moved to Louisville with B my relationship with the girls was over, I just didn’t know it yet. As I tried to keep it alive and I as I mourned its death sitting on the front porch of our first Louisville apartment, sipping margaritas out of a plastic cup and listening to the Buffett box set reminded me that once, I loved those girls and those girls loved me like nothing else in this world.
When I saw Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood it broke my heart. Not only because “OMG such similar mother issues!” but because that should have been the four of us. We should have been snarky, semi-alcoholic old women together. Even though that will never come to pass Buffett music reminds me viscerally of when that lifelong relationship was still possible.
Ah, that’s it. Jimmy Buffett’s music is frothy and playful and fun and it reminds me of all life’s potential and possibilities. I like each new Buffett album less than I like the previous one but I can listen to any of the four discs from the box set and fall in love all over again. And as I get older “A Pirate Looks at Forty” gets me every single time. That is all.
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