Grab Your Rhinestones and Find a Dang Shovel

For the Love of Dolly Parton

The last time I was here, I started this blog, For the Love of Dolly Parton.

So it feels fitting, and honestly a little strange, that I find myself back here talking about Dolly.

In the wee hours of the morning on August 25, shortly after midnight, I had a dream.

Dolly was performing her final show.

At the end, the Looney Tunes “That’s all, folks!” played. Dolly announced that this was it. Her last show. Her last song. And then she faded away.

And I woke up.

I don’t typically dream about Dolly.

But my affinity for Dolly started long before my Tennessee years. As I grew older and found more of myself, Dolly somehow became what I can only describe as a distant close relative.

Someone I had never met, yet somehow always knew where to find when I needed her.

If I needed advice, I could go looking through Dolly quotes. If I needed perspective, I could find an old broadcast or interview and listen to her talk about life in that unmistakably Dolly way. And if I needed to feel understood, there was probably a song with a story tucked inside it that met me exactly where I was.

I think that’s what Dolly became for so many of us around the world.

We didn’t actually know her.

But somehow, we knew her.

Like that relative who lived far away but whose stories, advice, humor, and wisdom still made their way into your life.

Years ago, I hung a print of Dolly’s face above our dining table simply because having Dolly in the kitchen brought me joy.

And there she stayed.

Not because she was just a celebrity I loved.

Somewhere along the way, Dolly had become family.

A distant close relative who just happened to belong to millions of us.

And we all know how the circle of life works. People are born. They live. They leave their marks on this world. Eventually, life changes.

But when we talk about someone’s life and legacy, especially someone like Dolly, I don’t want us to stop at:

“She was such a good human.”

She was.

But come on.

That barely scratches the surface.

I want us to dig into Dolly’s life.

I want us to look beyond the rhinestones, the hair, the boobs, the music, the laugh, and even the incredible generosity.

I want to know:

What made Dolly, Dolly?

Look at the choices.

Look at how she treated people who had less power than she did.

Look at what she did when she saw a need.

Look at the opportunities she created, the children she invested in, the people she welcomed, and the ways she challenged the world while somehow wrapping it all in enough sweetness, humor, and rhinestones that people occasionally missed just how radical some of it really was.

Because there is something to learn there.

Dolly once said:

“I’m just redneck enough that if things ain’t exactly how I want them to be, I’ll find a way to get it that way.”

Now, I don’t know exactly what Dolly meant when she said it.

But I know what Beth hears.

If you see something that isn’t right, what are you going to do about it?

Because humans are incredibly good at explaining why things cannot change.

I couldn’t.

I don’t want to.

That’s not my job.

We’ve always done it this way.

There isn’t enough time.

We don’t have enough people.

That’s just how the system works.

And sometimes every single one of those things is true.

There really might not be enough time.

There might not be enough people.

The system might actually be a mess.

You may have inherited a problem you didn’t create, didn’t ask for, and frankly don’t feel like dealing with.

But none of that answers the question:

Is what we are doing right?

And if it isn’t, what are we willing to do next?

That’s the part of Dolly’s quote that gets me.

She doesn’t say, “If things aren’t exactly how I want them, I’ll spend my time explaining all the reasons they can’t be different.”

She says:

“I’ll find a way.”

There is a massive difference between recognizing barriers and allowing those barriers to become our excuse for inaction.

You can acknowledge that the road is terrible.

You can be frustrated that nobody paved the damn thing before you got there.

You can even be pissed that apparently somebody handed YOU the shovel.

But eventually, if people are depending on that road, somebody has to start digging.

Especially when the people affected have less power than we do.

Kids.

Families.

People who have been overlooked.

People whose voices are easier to ignore.

People who have spent their lives being asked to adapt to systems that were never designed with them in mind.

Being “the change” sounds beautiful when we slap it on a coffee mug.

In real life?

Being the change can be inconvenient as hell.

It means asking questions when everyone else is comfortable.

It means saying, “But why?” one more time.

It means being willing to admit that something we’ve always done might not actually be working.

It means trying something different.

Adjusting.

Failing.

Learning.

Trying again.

And sometimes it means realizing that just because something isn’t technically your fault doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability to make it better.

No, one person cannot fix every broken system.

You cannot carry the whole damn road on your back.

You shouldn’t have to.

But you can work on the piece of road in front of you.

Maybe that’s one of the things Dolly has been teaching us all along.

Not perfection.

Agency.

I see it.

It isn’t right.

I have some ability to influence it.

So what can I do?

Maybe that’s part of how a woman from the mountains of East Tennessee became a distant close relative to millions of people who never actually met her.

Yes, there was the hair.

The boobs.

The rhinestones.

The music.

The laugh.

The one-liners.

All of it gloriously and unapologetically Dolly.

But underneath all that sparkle was a woman who seemed to understand something incredibly important:

You don’t have to control everything to change something.

And that’s why I don’t want to remember Dolly simply by saying:

She was a good human.

I want to study what made her one.

I want to look at the moments when she saw something that wasn’t right and ask what she did next.

Because maybe there are lessons there for all of us.

So when you find yourself standing in front of something you KNOW could be better, pay attention to what comes out of your mouth next.

If it’s a list of all the reasons it can’t be done, ask yourself one more question:

Okay…but what CAN I do?

Then grab your rhinestones.

Find a dang shovel.

And start paving another road.

Because sometimes change doesn’t begin with somebody having all the answers.

Sometimes it begins with one person being redneck enough to look at the road everybody else has accepted and say:

Nah. We can do better than this.

For the love of Dolly Parton. 💗✨🦋