Plant Life in a Human World

Experiencing someone out-of-context, who is part of THE context

“In the next 30 minutes something is going to happen that is incredibly profound and I bet almost no one notices it.”

I get excited when I feel like I am in a moment in history that I will want to remember forever. Maybe that is the storyteller gene in me. I don’t necessarily mean historic events in the sense that books will be written about them, or that plaques will be installed in the location that they took place, but moments when, if you give them some thought, they make you at least look up to the ceiling, and nod a little make that ‘humph’ sound, and do that thing with your bottom lip that is between a frown and a smile.

My wife and I were talking to another couple that we knew but had not expected to run into that night. We were in Meridian, Mississippi having a bite to eat before attending a Patty Griffin concert at the very cool downtown theatre.

We had arranged for a very late night baby-sitter (a rare occurrence for young parents). This may have been our first time to be away from one of our kids for so many hours in a row. We had been encouraged to try to make the most of it, so we left town early with plans to return very late that night. We left early enough that we arrived in town a few hours before the show would even begin. We were so early in fact that we actually saw Patty Griffin having dinner in the main dining room of the big restaurant downtown. We were headed for a side room with a bar and tall tables. I could tell it was her, not because I know the profile of the back side of her head but because she was sitting directly across from the unmistakable curly locks of Robert Plant. I had read somewhere that they were in a relationship. When I saw him in Meridian, Mississippi on a weeknight, I knew that must be her sitting at the table with him and two other people.

I had arrived in town expecting to see Patty, that was no surprise, but there was something about seeing Robert Plant that captured my imagination. There was this guy, there to watch his sweetheart perform. But the guy just happened to also be a performer and not just a performer but the front man of one of the biggest bands in the history. Tonight, he would be somewhere off stage while she would be front and center in the spotlight. I wondered what that would be like. I got lost in my thoughts for a minute, but I was brought back to reality as I heard the familiar guitar solo from Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing” playing in the background. This was what I assume was a typical satellite radio feed that streamed into this bar and bars just like it all the time. Classic Rock. Tunes familiar enough to keep everyone happy.

And that is when it hit me.

I interrupted whatever conversation was taking place with our friends who we knew enough to enjoy talking to for as long as we were there, but not well enough to have known that we’d both be at the same concert 2 hours away from home. It was a bit of a risk that they that they might not think I was quite as profound as I felt.

“Listen I said, that is Dire Straits, which means that at some point in the next 30 minutes a song in going to play through those speakers that was recorded into a microphone some 40 years ago in a studio somewhere by a man that is sitting in this restaurant right now – a song that has become so ubiquitous (let’s be honest, no way I used that word in that context), that it will not catch any of our attention, unless we are listening for it – the interesting thing to me is whether he will even notice.”

Without knowing which Led Zeppelin song it would be, it was safe to say that within every hour of a Classis Rock radio feed you were sure to hear some tune from the iconic English rock band.

There is no telling how many times any of us had heard these songs, no telling how many times we had heard them without paying attention. But there was only one person in the world who had breathed those lyrics into existence in a room thousands of miles, thousands of days, and millions of vinyl turns, 8 track and tape winds, and CD spins away from this moment.

Some part of me wanted to go find a perch to spy on Mr. Plant while I waited for that moment, but I resisted, not wanting to overdo it with our semi-friends and especially not my wife during our rare very special date night. It would have to be enough for me to just think about it.

Then it happened…

“Hey hey, mama said the way you move…”

“There it is,” I said holding my hand out with a subtle “quiet” gesture to command the attention of everyone at our high-top table.

“There’s what?” my wife said. But before I could answer our friend (Chad) knew what I meant. “Oh yeah, Led Zeppellin, you were right”

I am not sure why it was so bizarre or maybe surreal to me but some combination of the time that had passed, the global impact the band had achieved, the fact that those lyrics coming out of the speakers had been sung in that way from the middle of stages of absolutely packed out arenas and stadiums all over the world, I just needed someone else to think about it with me for a minute.

I couldn’t see the famous couple from where we sat and I wouldn’t see Robert Plant again until the final number that evening, when Patty invited him on stage (her stage) to sing one song with her. But I loved having that moment in time when the whole world seemed larger and smaller at the same time. When sounds as familiar as the ping of an elevator door are all of a sudden connected to flesh and blood, and time and space, and blue jeans and graying curly long rock-star hair peering out from the curtain watching his girlfriend sing songs for people after we all ate dinner in Meridian, Mississippi.

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