My crush on Johnny Cash was complex. On one hand, I wanted an outlaw. On the other, I wanted him only after he had been redeemed, after the ostrich attack and the addiction to painkillers, after the crawling-into-a-cave suicide attempt, after rehab and rehab, after finding religion.
This is documented here and soon, in an essay in this book (which my mother has already pre-ordered). I wanted my outlaw an ex-outlaw, weary but stable.
Then I realized I didn’t want him at all.
And I didn’t want to be, despite my wisecracks and show biz past, June Carter.
I just wanted a love like theirs. A love that hit suddenly and instantly, like lightning. But lightning that lasted, that kept on flashing, constant, calm, and fierce. A love so strong that one of us would be eighty, making a video for a Nine Inch Nails song for our comeback album and requesting that the other dance naked on the piano right now, please. I didn’t think I would find a love like that. I didn’t think it was real. Fortunately, I was wrong.
