Hello stranger, put your loving hand in mine
Hello stranger, put your loving hand in mine
You are a stranger, but you’re a pal of mine
Sometimes these lyrics just go on repeat in my head; to me they signify exactly what the bluegrass community is about.
Just yesterday, me and my boyfriend (and fellow band member) were talking about bluegrass has enriched our lives, not only because of the music, but also because of the fact that it is a door to the world. This summer our band Red Herring will hop in the car and drive 10 hours to the south of Germany where we will play at somebody’s private party. The person who booked us did so after he heard us play last year at the bluegrass festival in La-Roche-sur-Foron in southeast France, which will be our next stop after Germany. We have some time to kill in between, so we’ll take our time slowly crossing through Switzerland by train. We don’t know anybody there, but that doesn’t matter; if we run into bluegrass lovers along the way, we’re sure we’ll easily make new friends, and if not, we are fine just to amuse ourselves and observe Swiss culture from the sidelines. We’re looking forward to La Roche, because we will see so many of our bluegrass friends from all over Europe and the USA, pick a few tunes with them and enjoy a good glass of wine in the quiet calm of the village with a beautiful view of the Alps.
After La Roche, two of the boys in the band will drive back home, and me and my boyfriend will take a plane to Prague, the gorgeous capital of Czech Republic, and after Prague, a bluegrass workshop week in the village of Hustopece in the Czech region of Moravia (good wine!). Last year, I was in Prague for a month to study the Czech language in a summer school. A difficult language to master, and unfortunately I didn’t get enough practice this year to be able to have a decent conversation… but, combined with the power of Google Translate, my basic knowledge of Czech at least gave me enough tools to figure out what my Czech bluegrass friends are posting on Facebook. They have a wonderful sense of humor! Also, what I didn’t know before last year, is how rich their movie culture is. If you get a chance, watch any Czech movie. I’m very picky when it comes to movies, and it is only on very rare occasions that I manage to watch a Hollywood blockbuster for more than 10 minutes before I give up, but this past year I’ve been watching several random Czech movies (just whatever I could get my hands on) and I’ve enjoyed them all… I particularly recommend Polski Film (Polish Movie), Domaci Pece (Home Care) and Knoflikari (The Buttoners).
I’m not a very physical person in general. When a friend is crying, I feel awkward, wanting to comfort them so badly but not knowing how. When greeting someone, I never know if I should shake their hand, kiss them on the cheek (and if so, do I go for one, two, or three kisses, and should I start with the left cheek or the right?), or hug them (and if so, with one arm or both, and how tight should the hug be?), so I usually fumble about a bit or just wave and say: “Hi!” But whenever I’m around Czech or Slovak bluegrass people, I always have the urge to hug them. Even if I don’t really speak their language, or if I don’t really know them or they don’t really know me. I just feel such a heart-felt appreciation of them, because they gave me so much: a group of Slovak bluegrass musicians were the first bluegrass people to invite me into their homes, take me to festivals, share music with me, to accept me for who I am, in spite of the culture clash, the gender divide (from the perspective of a Dutch person, the Czechs and Slovaks are quite oldfashioned in their take on “what makes a man” and “what makes a woman”), and the fact that I can just be a difficult person to be around sometimes.
This past year I also met some wonderful people from the USA, at the IBMA, at a few European festivals, and just out of the blue: a man who I had also met quite recently and spontaneously (because he had gotten my email address from a mutual friend and asked if we could meet and talk about bluegrass) sent me a mail telling me that he would have a woman from North Carolina over for a few days, and if I would like it if they paid us a visit. She is writing a PhD about bluegrass music and she was interested in the book I wrote about bluegrass lovers in the Netherlands. He didn’t even know her himself, but again, he had been asked to host her by his friend Fred Bartenstein and he thought: any friend of Fred’s is a friend of mine. And it worked out perfectly. We had a great conversation and I felt we had known each other for years; even though I had had a rough day and was tired at the start of dinner, by dessert I felt more at ease than I do around some of my “normal friends.”
I don’t remember if I hugged them when I left, or if we bumped heads because of the confusion about the number of kisses-on-cheeks, or if we shook hands or if I just waved. But I’m sure my eyes must have beamed as I thought to myself: Goodbye stranger, put your loving hand in mine; you are a stranger, but you’re a pal of mine.
