About twenty years ago, I was living in Vermont, doing odd jobs for my grandfather, waiting tables near a ski resort and getting ready to go to graduate school when I heard this album, Dream Café, by Greg Brown. That year was one of the biggest “in-betweens” in my life: I was a few years out of college; I’d been in love and then lost it; I’d lived in Mexico and worked a desk job in Boston; I thought I’d lived a little by then but there was so much unknown in front of me.
Greg Brown has this incredibly rich voice and a great way of writing both quirky little songs about why he loves coffee and also these beautifully sad and wise reflections on everything else. One of the songs on Dream Café was like a kind of portal for me. It’s called “Spring Wind” and the first time I heard it, I remember thinking: “That’s it. That’s the life I want to live.”
Each verse felt almost perfect for me: one about growing old with friends who really know you; one about finding a calling that matters to you and hopefully to the world; one about being the kind of father who dances and cries with his kids; and one about how a deep love for someone can endure through whatever comes. And it wasn’t just that Brown wrote about all the things I wanted for my life; he also seemed to know how I wanted to live it. How to be playful and deep-thinking, loyal and passionate, someone who could always been reminded by the right kind of spring breeze to look up from my troubles and feel grateful for what I had. Back then, I honestly didn’t know if any of that would be possible for me but, man, did I want it.
I wasn’t much of a guitar player but I learned to play that song and for years I would sing it, sometimes to other people as a not-so-sly way to open up, but mostly I played it on my own, almost like an incantation, so I would remember.
A couple of weeks ago I was playing guitar for my eight-year-old daughter at bedtime and she asked me to sing “Spring Wind.” It’s become one of her favorite songs and I noticed for the first time that she knew a lot of the words and was singing along. That was something I hadn’t seen coming, one of those “oh wow” moments you sometimes get as a parent. Music is amazing that way—it can telescope your life across decades, and connect the person you once hoped you’d be with the one you’ve actually become in just minutes. There are definitely days when I feel I don’t stack up, but most days I feel grateful.
My name is Alex Mas, I live in Portland with my wife and three kids and I work for The Nature Conservancy. And this is music that moves me.