Heart of Gold

There is a song by Neil Young on his album "Harvest" that is called "Heart of Gold". I hear it once in blue moon on an old rock station.His voice always gets to me. It has a sadness to it, a deep awareness of much of the futility of human conflict and circumstance. There is a haunting quality to his ballads, to their deliberate measured pace and concerns. His music makes me ache to understand , to belong , truly , with heart and spirit to this large country. Thirty-six years into the adventure, I still feel very much an outsider. Whenever I hear a song by Neil Young, I am reminded in a knife to the stomach sort of pain, that the America he sings about, is a place I rarely see and know. Perhaps it is that way for him too. His songs have a beauty to them that is tinged with tragedy, and always make me feel truly melancholic. "Old Man", "Long may you run", "The Needle and the damage done", all incredibly beautiful songs that make me feel my heart is being turned inside out. His songs fill me with the undeniable realization that there is an inherent loneliness to the American psyche that is disguised, camouflaged, but always just barely hidden, in a quick to friendliness spirit, in an obsession with competition, and success. This country does not lack poetry, I see it every where, and daily, in my garden, in the simplicity of a close to the country life, it is just that the emotional stoicism often detracts from the ability to truly live the poetic aspects of life here, both in circumstance and relationships. The attempt to eradicate the native American cultures perhaps added to this psyche bent on individual drive. In my African American Baptist church, I feel at home emotionally. There is a warmth and passion in the spiritual experience, in the music, in the joy that makes me feel I belong. Perhaps this country comes across cold to me at times, because it is subdivided into so many sub cultures and ethnicities, that for me to feel I belong, I feel the need to identify with specific ethnic groups in order to feel at ease. My husband is part native American, my church is African American, my hairdresser is Vietnamese, and I am happy about that. Perhaps the American experience is too vast to comprehend in one generalized swoop, can only be appreciated in its vast cultural variety, especially by someone like me who has a deep interest in different cultures. Maybe I should not try so hard to understand this country but rather enjoy its complexity that continues to confound me. The next time I hear Neil Young 's "Heart of Gold", that realization might   make the song more optimistic, more hopeful.