Amanda Donald
Mobile Bay, Fairhope, Alabama
I know Amanda through Johnny Hayes. We filmed in Fairhope, a town along the edge of Mobile Bay. Mobile is where I was born–born, but never lived. All my momma’s family is here and I can’t go back without feeling like my heart is imprinted upon the sand somewhere around here.
The shallow water was grey, blue, tan, and sparkled under the midday sun. It was warm enough for a sundress, and with the wind, cool enough for a jean jacket. Seagulls showed up to sing back up, and kept their usual enthusiasm at bay, adding an extra nautical flavor to her music.
Amanda was the first artist I filmed in Mobile. Her first song started what would be a theme from the musicians from Mobile. Place, this whole coastal bit of Alabama was written into their music. The space invoked to tell a story that could not be from anywhere else.
I cried during one of Amanda’s songs, ‘When I leave Alabama.’ The first chapter of my life is leaving this place, and as she describes in the song I’ve come back so many times over the years. The reason I left is because my mom left to marry my Dad. When he died and later she remarried so much space and time had passed that we’ve never come back to live. I did not expect it to hit me like that. Amanda had to turn away to finish the song. Though it brought me to tears it was not unhappiness but a reminder of the capriciousness of events we can’t control that end up shaping us. There are no bad winds, it’s just how we sail them, and when they’re too strong, it’s how we ride them out. @amandadonaldmusic