Do you have a favorite song?
I have so many. Today a song came up on my shuffle that I hadn’t heard in a while, and I was quickly reminded why it is one of my favorite songs of all time, if not my most favorite (clasps hands in delight as I’m known to do when discussing my most favorites. I am that person.)
I first heard Fireflies in 2005 when Faith Hill sang it as the titular song on one of her albums. It was written by Lori McKenna and served as my introduction to her incredible songwriting. A gorgeous storyteller, Lori McKenna’s work is so quietly beautiful, simple and so damn affecting at the same time. In my opinion, no one draws pictures through music quite like her.
The song, at least how I interpret it, speaks to the magically cushy bubble of childhood and what a gift it is to be able to pull from those memories when life gets difficult and complicated as an adult. I’ve given Fireflies hundreds of listens over the years, and I still get choked up almost every single time.
“And before you knew me, I’d traveled round the world.
I slept in castles and fell in love, because I was taught to dream…”
photo by Stephanie DiMaggio
I didn’t grow up in the dark ages. We had Nintendo and we made mixtapes by hand. But my Swatch phone was connected to a landline, and for the most part we played outside, on grass, on sand, and on cement. Without cell phones, let alone social media, I feel as though perhaps I was the last generation of kids to grow up in blissful naïveté, unaware of what everyone else was doing all the time. Without the immediate feedback of seeing a picture the second after taking it, and therefore experiencing moments unburdened with thoughts of how it all really could have looked better somehow. We had an easier time developing a foundation rooted in imagination, wonder, groundedness and enough-ness. We had the freedom to dream without unabating influence and it was remarkable. I try to keep this top of mind as a grown-up, frequently reminding myself to channel the feelings of security and self-assurance I possessed as a cheeky adolescent. A time when things just didn’t seem all that serious, and when I didn’t worry so much about the opinions of others. I love that girl, and I miss her when I get too far away from her.
And listening to this song today, I think of my friends who are parents. I’m not a parent yet and most of my friends are. They’re doing a beautiful job raising these fantastic little humans and I tell them I will never have to read a parenting book because I’ve gotten to learn by watching them first. When they confide in me about their worries, their struggles, I don’t have the experience upon which to draw some practical advice, nor a way to commiserate. Oftentimes what I find myself telling them, and I mean this not in a breezy way, and with all sincerity, is their kids seem really happy. And I have a lot of friends with a lot of kids and, seriously, they all seem happy. Well-fed. Well-loved. It’s awesome.
I can only imagine what parenting in the age of information is like. I wonder, as an outsider looking in, if the things we cherished as kids, just feeling loved and safe and the freedom to exercise our imaginations, don’t have all that much to do with many of the pressures I see being put on modern parents. When s*@t (…govno…mierda if you prefer…cheers to grandparents who taught me how to curse in different languages) hits the fan, as it inevitably always does, inner reservoirs of resilience and confidence most likely will not have come from the moments that are the most instagrammable. They’re going to come from these little seeds of love, safety and creativity planted there by parents who (and I know this because I witness it firsthand) care about them and love them so, so much. These tiny but mighty seeds are what Fireflies is about.
It’s amazing that one song can make you ponder all of these things, and still, after all these years, pack quite the emotional punch. How I hear Fireflies has evolved over time, as I have. I know Lori McKenna is indeed correct when she writes about the power of childhood dreams in the face of the complexities of adulthood. Now I also wax nostalgic for a time when I didn’t quite know what she meant, and life hadn’t yet served up any reasons to need to call upon my cushy bubble of youthful naïveté. And being Steph’s sister for as long as I have, I know this kind of connection is at the core of why she lives her life as an artist, even when it is sometimes breathtakingly difficult. For they are the ones that write the plays, the books, the songs, the stories that will stay with us, evolve with us and still make us emotional, even fifteen years later.
By Marissa DiMaggio
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