Quiet Thoughts on a Warm Summer Evening

Some rather loud friends came over last night. I didn’t realize just how loud until we started singing. Anika played the piano with unparalleled gusto, and we all joined in with as much joie de vivre as is possible on a muggy Wednesday night in August, singing every anthem we could think of - and then some. About 10.30 or so the front desk person from our co-op – a very nice young woman with the most amazing hair pieces – knocked on our door to quietly tell us there had been noise complaints and could we please desist our revelries, which we did. The crime committed was worth it, however. I apologize to our neighbours for the disruption but I’m not sorry.

There is joy to be had in committing little crimes.

Years ago, when we were traveling in Italy and didn’t know the road toll system, we entered a motorway without getting a toll ticket or whatever they call them in Italy. When we exited, there was a man in a little booth who demanded payment. To begin with, we didn’t really know what he was saying but we did manage to decipher that without a ticket we owed him 90 euro. We said we wouldn’t pay. In plain English. ‘Call the police if you want”, I said. There was a moment of confused indecision on our part and his and then, suddenly and without thinking, I told him to ‘fuck off’, hit the gas, and we took off into the Tuscan countryside. The sun was beating down and the heat oppressive, and we called ourselves ‘the bandidos’. We decided, as we drove through the steamy summer vineyards, laughing to ourselves, fresh from our misdemeanor, that we would commit a small transgression every day for the rest of our trip.

The next day we snuck into a closed-to-the-public public swimming pool by jumping a high fence. We swam and splashed and thought ourselves felonious in the extreme. The day after we stripped naked in the middle of a farmer’s field and dipped ourselves into a natural thermal bath because a sign said not to. It was written in Italian, but the hours were posted, and we were too late - in any language. But we were bandidos, so it was incumbent upon us to do the opposite. And, being late in the day, we were running out of time to break any rules.

I can’t recall the rest of the crimes we committed on that holiday but there were many. Some flowers were picked from a private garden. I think we might have stolen some crusty buns from a restaurant and stuffed them into our pockets, or that might’ve been on another trip. Or I might be mixing it up with a smart restaurant in Washington where we watched a wealthy-looking patron at the next table fill his briefcase with dinner rolls. He was obviously up to something akin to our own misadventures. Another bandido in our midst.

Last night I felt the same joyful feeling that I had years ago in Italy; a sense of liberation at having done a bad thing unapologetically. Making too much noise at night singing Jacque Brel’s ‘If We Only Have Love’ is not a particularly heinous felony but it counts for something in the way of misdeeds. We sang it quite well I have to say. And we didn’t exactly stop when were asked to but quietly finished the evening with a soft-pedalled version of ‘A Case of You’. Life requires a few small wrongdoings if for no other reason than to do them.

We can’t climb every mountain, but we can sing it loudly every now and again, in three part harmony if we choose. If only to wake the neighbours.

Joni Mitchell - lawless breaker of many musical rules