Reason to Believe

If I listened long enough to you
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe

~ Tim Hardin

Today is Kathie's birthday, so I've been thinking about her and tracing our friendship back through the decades.  And it's getting close to six decades now.  Kathie moved to town in fourth grade and started shaking things up pretty quickly.  So damn smart.  And witty and child-like and (as one of our elementary school teachers recently said to me about her) "free-spirited."  Together, Kathie and I "published" two books. One was a book of animal poems; the other was a book of our made-up "Indian Legends."  I would love to see those books again, but these were the days before copying machines, and we gave our only copies to our fourth grade teacher, the beloved Mrs. Newton.  (Perhaps our love for her had something to do with the fact that she was the only teacher in the building at that time who was under 90 years old.)

Although I could easily detail our friendship year by year, I will jump to 1966-67.  Kathie, now sporting green contact lenses and a geometric haircut, was learning to play guitar, a very cool thing to do in the folk-era mid-sixties.  And she could play this Tim Hardin song, Reason to Believe.  Now mind you, Tim (at 25 years old) recorded his song six years before Rod Stewart did.  The song got to me, and I cannot hear it without thinking of Kathie strumming her six-string and crooning it the way that only a teenager in love can do.

So, thinking about Kathie on this day, I considered how these same lyrics might move me now, fifty years later.  And without belaboring the point, I cannot escape the political ramifications.  I'll let you ponder that one on your own.  Suffice it to say, these are uncertain times, and we are all looking for a reason to believe.

For now, I believe I will wish Kathie a happy birthday!  Thanks for the song, my friend.