Persistence is more than a cool-lookin' chinese symbol

I was tweezing my eyebrows in the bathroom yesterday afternoon and I had CMT blaring from the TV in the living room so I could have some music to tweeze by, and I heard a familiar guitar intro that made me trip over dogs in a dash toward the living room to see if it was who I thought it was. It was! Patty Griffin. She's one of those artists who hits me in the back of the spine and makes my chest tighten. She was doing the Long Ride Home video from the Elizabethtown soundtrack and it was a CMT world premiere. That might mean she'll be on CMT lots in the coming weeks! I jumped around and cheered like I was watching a Colts game. I like a lot of artists - Sarah MacLachlan, Tori Amos, Melissa Etheridge, Blackeyed Peas, Coldplay, Jennifer Nettles/Sugarland, Hootie and the Blowfish (yes, really) - but Patty Griffin is just plain mesmerizin' to me. I love the one-name songs: Tony, Mary, Christina... And this lyric from Nobody's Cryin':

May you dream you are dreaming, in a warm soft bed
May the voices inside you that fill you with dread
Make the sound of thousands of angels instead
Tonight where you might be laying your head

She's so empowering. And sad at times. We saw her in Austin a few times when we lived there and we've seen her once in Dallas. I became verklempt each time. Not while she was rockin' out; just when she got mellow and contemplative.

I think one of the reasons why I got so excited about seeing her on CMT yesterday, is that she is proof that persistence pays off. She just keeps plugging away and new doors open all the time. She's had success (Dixie Chicks' Let Him Fly is her song), but she's not mainstream. She just keeps doin' what she's doin'. I have a black rope necklace at home that has the chinese symbol for persistence dangling from it, but sometimes I forget to believe it. I start doubting that persistence will ever produce positive results and I feel defeated. But Patty Griffin offers renewed hope! Someday I'll have more opportunity in my career and with my side projects, and I'll feel like I'm a better contributor to the world. Then I'll be able to look back (squeezing my persistence necklace of course) and know it was all worth it. Thanks Patty!