Edge of Seventeen

I recently came up with the idea for a dual, cool-person reading club. Since the club was my idea, I gave the first suggestion. It was The Ghost Road by Hemmingway of our age, Mark Jenkins. She liked it, which made me happy, and her thoughts are available to read here.

For my first assignment, I was told to peruse a website of Stevie Nicks quotes, and just kind of respond. I admit that what follows is somewhat melodramatic, but I’m talking about rock stars, so it’s hard not to do.

I think that there is a connection that comes from creating something with another person. It’s the chemistry between mothers and fathers, and slightly differently between band mates. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had love for each other, and they shared the bond of co-creation. That must have been truly extraordinary.

Then the way it all ended… Lindsey Buckingham seems to be incapable of sustaining his relationship with Stevie beyond the passion they had during the music and fame and creativity. Stevie says that at one point the relationship devolved to the point that she would “walk into a room and he'd become the most sarcastic, unpleasant man on the face of the earth.”

I have a picture in my mind. It’s of Lindsey Buckingham sitting in a basement. He’s holding court over a group of hippies. There’s smoke in the air, and three joints are being passed around the group. Beer, whiskey, maybe there are some girls are in the corner doing lines. It’s Lindsey at home, relaxed, everyone in the room is less rich, less famous, less smart and less creative than him. He’s grinning, and offhandedly strumming an acoustic guitar.

Then Stevie walks in. The girls wipe their noses, a few of the guys start rolling more joints, they act distracted, everyone is looking away. Lindsey puts down the guitar. Tension fills the air. Then Lindsey says something terrible.

He doesn’t mean it. Not really. He is lashing out nonsensically. He’s suspicious and paranoid and conflicted. I think he wants control, control of his environment and the people within it. He loves Stevie, but she isn’t his, not really. She is her own person. In her love she has given herself to Lindsey, but not completely, she doesn’t let herself.

She does this not because she is some violent feminist, but because she is scared. She does not know what she is scared of, but she thinks she knows how to fight her fear. She fights it with personal strength, independence, creativity and, when these fail, the drugs.

They are both wealthy and famous, and they love each other, they really do. But each is governed by some indelible flaw that serves like wall between them. And every night Lindsey worries about Stevie’s faithfulness, or tears into her esteem with mean words and passive aggressiveness, the bricks build and build on this wall, until one day the two wake up and realize that the wall is so tall that it blocks out the other completely.

And then the love dies. But it's a love that will leave countless people will share in for years to come.