There are really few things I have loved longer than this man. Actually, outside of family members, I don't think I've loved anything this long. Athletics are a close second, but I'm not sure I loved sports at quite this young. It also may not be the healthiest thing in the world to contemplate decade-long loves months before my marriage, but there are times the Fates conspire. The love to which I am referring, however, has complimented nearly every life stage since I first heard them in 1993. At 11 years old, my country music-filled life was literally changed forever. Dave Matthews with his saxophones, violins, and the two things I would never forget, about which I dreamed under tables in four different, lovely cities became the soundtrack for what has been the rest of my life thus far.
His solo album is the winter I finally moved out of the dorms, got a puppy, and painted my wall red. "Two Step" reminds me of the love, patience, and wisdom of a friend when even I didn't know what was good for me. Everyday was the summer between freshman and sophomore year when I lived on Grand Island and worked with the UB wresting team, playing his tapes on a portable boom box because the Hot Rod Lincoln didn't have a working sound system. "Grace is Gone" reminds me of how ManFriend and I officially started - an empathetic summer rocked by injury and heartache (his, surprisingly). "Bartender" is the hills coming out of Malibu after the AV prom I orchestrated. "Crush" is what I dreamed and now realize is all that New York is for me.
Dave brought my favorite Uncle and I together. (Sure, I'm allowed to have a favorite uncle. The man has a '100 Things to do Before I Die' list that includes a vacation with my grandfather. THAT man - Grandpa - is by far one of the ten coolest men to walk the planet. The list, in case you were wondering, includes Jesus, Johnny Cash, and my grandpa. Oh, Albert Einstein, Pat Riley, Larry Bird, and my dad, Uncle, and William Faulkner are also on that list. See? Pretty impressive list.) Dave brought ManFriend and I together, consoled me through our breakups, and eventually even saw us back together again. "Stay or Leave" is the song that is my memorial to the puppy he saw me find and raise. "Sister" predictably, is the best, purest ways I feel about Pigeon.
And Tuesday, as New York slowly, reluctantly warmed just enough to get me outside for a run, Dave saw me through my first 7 miles of the spring season. I rode across the Williamsburg Bridge, waved my daily wave at the Chrysler Building, listening to "Dream Girl" and remembered the feel of the warm summer sun on my skin. As cheesy, white-bread, and disgustingly predictable as it is for someone my age to worship the band that everyone had scrawled across their Mead notebooks while they grunged up their flannels in homeroom, but I know a few things. I know when Brother and I can agree on nothing else, we can agree that "Live at Red Rock Canyon" is his best album. I know that the story about ManFriend's arrest at Dave's Saratoga concert is the first Sheffer/Corona family story I'll be able to bring out at future family reunions. I know the closest friends I have all have a Dave song I listen to when I miss them the most. I can honestly saw that I truly do look forward to the new, intuitive, and perfectly-worded ways that Dave will find to compliment the new stages of my life.
