Whistle Down the Wind

It had been twenty-four years since she’d last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same. Hannah didn’t know what she expected when she drove by her old high school, but she hoped there would at least be something. Movies made her believe that there’d be this intense nostalgia when she saw it, some burning recognition of her childhood. She even had a mixtape from her high school years playing in the car. She had to buy a whole new CD player to listen. The Head & The Heart, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, all those romantic fall tracks. She even timed it so that the rest of the band came in on Rivers and Roads as she passed by. But she didn’t have her nostalgic epiphany, no repressed memory was brought to light, and not a hint of sadness passed through her. It was just another building in the backwoods of Bishopville, South Carolina. Not that her high school years had been anything remarkable. From the start she was plainly resigned to not have anything to do with it. When 9th grade began, all of her best friends had skipped town to go to some charter school. She didn’t have the grades to make it. All that remained was the gunk and trash from middle school. The stoners, rednecks, burnouts and unlearned masses. She decided they weren’t for her just plain and simple. So she just didn’t make friends. It’s not that she was never invited to hang out, she chose to stay by herself. She wasn’t embarrassed to eat her lunch in the library, she chose to do that. 

None of them knew that they were in the midst of a great singer-songwriter. The librarian had allowed her to stow her guitar away under the reception counter, and all of her free time was spent writing songs in her little notebook. She was inspired by the 70s greats- Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Nick Drake. It was what her dad always played when he drove her to school as a kid. Music taste was the only thing she agreed with her parents about.

She made her great escape as soon as she got her learner’s permit. That night, she threw her phone in a creek behind the Piggly Wiggly and took her dad’s 2005 Ford Explorer all the way up to Nashville. For three wonderful days she lived out of her hotel room, pretending to be a regular Nashvillian. She’d wake up in the mornings and walk to the cafe, choking down coffee while she worked on her songs. Afternoons and nights were spent in all of the bars she wasn’t carded at. Each one overflowed with great music- rock, bluegrass, country, punk, folk - and all for free.

On her second day, as she walked by she heard a woman singing in one of those bars she wasn’t allowed in, and her voice stopped Hannah dead in her tracks. The words spoke to her like nothing she’d ever heard. Her guitar had a practiced melodic strum to it, and her voice, not super showy, had a beautiful ache to it.

But sometimes the music from a dance

Will carry across the plains

And the places that I’m dreaming of

Do they dream only of me?

Hannah sat there for almost an hour, leaning against a light pole, letting the music wash over her. When the woman stepped out, Hannah tried her best to act casual but she picked her right out. 

“Oh honey” she said with a smile. “I saw you standing there.”

The woman, who Hannah learned was named Natalie, pulled her inside and told the bartender to make them sandwiches. She had a hippie charm to her. She covered her fresh wrinkles with scarves and a big hat with feathers. They sat up on the rooftop and watched the city go by. Hannah was disappointed to learn that most of Natalie’s songs were covers, until she explained her process.

“These songs speak to me, just like they did to you. There’s an art to wrapping them up in my life experience and spittin’ em back out into the world.”

After they finished up, Natalie wrote her phone number on the back of an old receipt and said to reach out if she needed a friend. But Hannah’s phone was in the creek behind Piggly Wiggly, and by the time she got back to the hotel she’d lost the receipt. But she didn’t care. Something about Natalie being in her middle ages, still hopping bar-to-bar trying to get her music career started bugged Hannah. The glamour of the world of music was demystified. All of these great bands were walking around day-to-day trying to prove themselves, hoping that the right person with the right connections would hear them play. These folks had real talent, and the fact that those who decided who goes on the radio didn’t see that was a shocker. Maybe trying to make it out here just wasn’t worth it, and she feared that if she stayed she’d be stuck once more. Just another musician in a city full of them.

By that night she was back in Bishopville. Her face was all over the news and her parents were worried sick.

And now she stared at her high school, the one she’d spent every ounce of her being trying to leave. She’d hoped she’d have her Lady Bird moment of recognition of the beauty of her hometown or whatever. It didn’t come. But just behind the school, a few blocks back, she could almost see the bridge of Highway 151 stretching overhead. Maybe Natalie was still playing music out there. Maybe she got a record deal. Who knows. If Hannah went back she’d certainly be stuck once more. But she’d rather be stuck anywhere else than Bishopville. 

She turned on the radio as she drove away. Some shitty country-rap track was on the pop station. She listened for a bit, trying to savor those last few moments she’d have to hear music like this. Then she turned to something else. And that was all that mattered.