Losing any beloved artist is hard, and it’s been a rough year. Gordon Lightfoot. David Crosby. My God, I am still in deep mourning over the loss of Taylor Hawkins. But tonight, Andy and I were randomly awake and saw that Jimmy Buffett was gone. Immediately, the world became less colorful. I told Andy, I loved that he could always make it sunset. “Come Monday,” “Son of a Sailor,” ESPECIALLY “A Pirate Looks at 40.”
Some students who were in a very small class know that Jimmy Buffett became a mascot and a beacon of hope during the pandemic. I wrote an essay about it a long time ago, but decided that what happened between me and those students was sacred and not for sharing. That said, there was a great story in there about learning how to learn and learning how to really listen, so I’ve pulled that part of the essay out. Forgive me: this is Buffett without context. But in my opinion he has always been a man above context, so this doesn’t feel out of place.
***
Right before the world shut down, a then-freshman in my Intro to Short Fiction class unintentionally created the mascot for my first online pandemic classroom. I was teaching beginning fiction (in normal glasses, before my left eye was bleeding and hurting all the time) and I posed what I thought would be an easy question. This was when we were still in the in-person classroom: there were only nine people there, but they were a motley Breakfast-Club-esque mix. Few would have socialized outside of class, though the year was about to force us to cling to each other like life rafts. But while we were still in the classroom, still a normal group of academics and scholars, I asked, “Is it possible to create high art AND be rich AND be happy?”
This student immediately said, “Absolutely not.”
I was relieved. My whole lesson plan that day was for someone to say artists have to be miserable and broke so I could apply a new theorem I’d posited on creativity: The Jimmy Buffett Anomaly. An approximation of our conversation follows:
Me: What about Jimmy Buffett? He’s brilliant, rich, and happy.
Student: He’s not brilliant. He’s a hack. I mean, “Cheeseburger in Paradise?”
Me: Or “A Pirate Looks at Forty.”
Student: “Margaritaville?!”
Me: “He Went to Paris.” I could do this all day. And besides, who cares? “Margaritaville” is fun and I’m not convinced that humor is the enemy of profundity.
The rest of the class wound up chiming in, but honestly, I worried that it was a wasted class period: everyone stayed on the side they started on, and no one conceded any ground. That is— until the student who argued against me went home, did research to try and find something to contradict me, and then did something truly inspiring in today’s world.
After finding enough information to make an argument, the student (yes, the same one— a freshman)— from here on out known as “Jimmy the Kid”— changed their mind. And they didn’t just change it— they announced it to the class. After that, the whole class was a Jimmy Buffett fest. Shortly after that class period, I was presented with The VHS of Honor, a live recording of a Buffett concert someone found at a thrift store.
I started offering extra credit to anyone who could answer (with a straight face and perfect retention) a seemingly unrelated question with a Buffett lyric. For example, when we read Alice Munro’s “Runaway,” a dark tale of abuse and danger at the edge of every interaction, I had the pleasure of this conversation with a different student:
Me to the class: What do you think could have made her life better? If she’d gotten on the bus, would she have fixed things?
Student two seats from my right: I think she could have been happy if she’d left. I think it’s obvious why. Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes. Nothing remains quite the same.
My student kept a completely straight face and got a standing ovation. I had to wipe the tears that were coming out of my “good” eye, both because it was so funny I couldn’t stop laughing, and because I was so surprised and grateful to have this amazing group of young thinkers, all of whom were brilliant but ready to be silly, too. An answer like that proves the Jimmy Buffett Anomaly: you can discuss high art and still have a great time doing it. In fact, it likely took a good bit more studying and thought to find the applicable Buffett lyric. And I can’t even think about Alice Munro without hearing Buffett’s voice in my head.
Five days later, the school sent the students home for spring break. A few days after that, we told them not to come back for “at least two weeks,” because of a novel coronavirus. My guess is you can sing the rest of this song without me spelling out the words for you.
***
Mother, mother ocean, after all the years I've found
My occupational hazard being my occupation's just not around
I feel like I've drowned, gonna head uptown
I feel like I've drowned, gonna head uptown
***
My first time in LA, I was there for the American Writers & Press Association conference, and my husband Andy came with me. We rented a convertible and he took me to every beach that ever made it in a rock song (we were all over Ventura Boulevard; we saw Laurel Canyon; I finally touched the ocean in Santa Monica; I had a quiet fish dinner during a sunset in Malibu). My favorite moment, though, was immortalized in a picture of Andy and me, our backs to the sunset, on Hermosa Beach. This picture is from about eight months before my stroke. I don’t always recognize the girl in the picture, but it has been my phone background for six years. We’re sort of blurry and shadowed against the flaming sun and ocean— but it’s my favorite because, as I said at the time, “I feel like this could have been an alternate cover for a 45 of ‘Come Monday.’” (It’s still the wallpaper on my phone, actually.)
***
That was a scary year, the pandemic. The next year was scary, too. My freshmen especially have battle scars. But Jimmy the Kid— he MADE it, triumphantly, because I can say— with a straight face— he ‘was impressive. Young and aggressive.’ And though it was terrifying feeling like I was ‘saving the world on [my] own,’ all of the fear, all of the anxiety, the sleepless nights, the moments where I still wonder if I ever made things worse for my flailing students because I, myself, was flailing— well, Buffett’s a true artist. And more than that, I believe in the Jimmy Buffett Theorem. You can be happy and successful. We’ve established that. I’ll let Buffett wrap this up with his words.
“Some of it’s magic/ Some of it’s tragic/ But [we have] a good life, all the way.”
Rest in peace, Jimmy Buffett. May you find the life of a pirate you always dreamed about.