do you remember the days when the rains came?

Deep in the country, amidst the large white house and barns surrounded by fields, forest, and lake—not a house or a human within shouting distance—a lonely daughter, at the distant bottom of a triad, longed for company. Animals and pets abounded on the pretended farm, but regular society eluded her outside of school, a half hour’s bus ride from home; hence the arrival of "Judy."

So begins "Judy," one of a collection of essays on imaginary friends in the Spring 2005 edition of the New York artsy-type magazine Esopus (that’s Issue #4, the one with the melting ice cream that kind of looks like a turd on the cover). Its author is the enigmatic, approximately 60-year-old Elizabeth Hope Cushing of Cambridge, Massachusetts. As you are no doubt aware, Ms. Cushing is perhaps best known as a generous benefactor of local environmental causes, as a chronicler of the people of Lynn, Massachusetts, as well as of the town’s images and, needless to say, its trees (yes, that’s correct: trees) -– yea, even as an authority on preservation and whatever landscape architect Arthur A. Shurcliff had to say about it; as someone who has served on the occasional advisory council here or there; even, one might say, as an aficionada of fine upholstery restoration.

This would all be well and good, perhaps a footnote in early 21st century short-form imaginary-friend literature, were it not for one happy artistic/musical accident: Ms. Cushing’s essay has become the occasion for yet another wonderful song by our very own Caulfield Sisters.

Here’s the deal: The magazine asked readers to submit essays about their imaginary friends, and then it asked selected musicians to pick an essay and write a song about it. (And what splendid taste the magazine showed in asking the Sisters to take part. The essay writers are an interesting lot, too –- they included Alan Sparhawk from the band Low.)

What the Sisters did with the story is magical. Over Kristin’s spare, metronomic beat comes Cindy’s strumming and a minimalist yet inventive bass line from Mary and, finally, Cindy’s voice, reverbed into a warm glow, a shimmering like the air over hot asphalt seen from a distance in the summer. And here is what she sings:

The lonely daughter’s come to play
(SOMETHING) ships be sailed away
Here you can sit, we’ve made a place
Judy, stay

Judy, stay
We’ll float away
And we can play
Judy, stay

I whispered things you could not say
You killed the loneliness that day
We need a spot to make her place
Judy, stay

Judy, stay
We’ll sail away
Go and stand, she waits
Judy, stay

Oooooooh
Oooooooh
Oooooooooooooooooh

Judy stay
We’ll sail away
She sits and waits
Judy stay

We drove away
Judy stayed
We drove away
Judy, wait
We drove away
Judy, wait

Na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na na na
Na na na

Na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na
Na na na

Na na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na
Na na na

Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na na
Na na na

Just before the "Na na na" part begins, the accordion kicks up, and the song surges away on waves of glorious melancholy.

The mood is much like that of "Dumbfound You" but without the bitterness, almost contemplative, and musically is much more complex. It also shows, even more than the more rocking songs like "Box of Glass," just how much Mary and Cindy have grown since their Pee Shy days -– the 'Shy always had to be in motion, either baffling or amusing us or dazzling us with their brilliant wordplay or rockin' our asses off, but rarely if ever did they allow themselves to be this still, be this quiet, and just simply be. (Some exceptions: "Smoking Gun," the Cindy-sung version of Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed," and the cover Pee Shy once performed of the Guided by Voices song "Gleemer" spring to mind.) The Caulfield Sisters are confident enough to stay in place and let their music stand on its own.

It’s also interesting to note a lyrical shift at the end of the song: As in Ms. Cushing's essay, the narrator eventually moves away with her family, leaving the imaginary Judy behind. ("Judy sat on the broad front step of the big, old, double-doored entrance, one skinny arm draped across knobby knees, the other waving good-bye as the ancient, wood-sided Ford station wagon, packed to the rooftop, hove out of sight. There was no question of taking her along.") Yet Cindy turns this around: Even as she leaves Judy behind, she begs Judy not to leave: "We drove away/Judy, wait."

Why? Why act as if Judy is the one who’s leaving? It almost suggests someone with abandonment issues –- cutting herself off from those dearest to her, then wondering where they went –- or someone feeling herself in the grip of forces she cannot control, so that her leaving people or them leaving her are emotionally equivalent. (I can relate: When I moved away from the Tampa Bay area I found myself mourning for it and for my friends left behind, as though life had stolen them from me. So maybe I’m projecting a bit?) Or maybe this is one of those cirumstances in which you leave people because you have to, even if it's the last thing you want ("how'd you learn to walk away/when you saw that you could not stay," as Cindy sang in "Smoking Gun").

Or maybe this is just what life does to all of us, shoving us out of wombs and homes and relationships before we’re ready, not just at the end of childhood (in which the wood-paneled station wagon leaves knobby-kneed Judy sitting on the steps in exactly the same way that Christopher Robin leaves behind his much more famous imaginary friends in the Hundred Acre Wood at the end of The House on Pooh Corner, and in the same way that J.R.R. Tolkien said all fairy tales must end with the protagonist back home in the real world he can no longer comfortably live in, bereft and longing endlessly to return to the lost magical realm); but also in the way that life steadily strips parents, siblings, friends, loved ones away from us, until it finally comes to claim our selves, shuttling us off into whatever new home awaits while the only true friend who stood with us in our loneliness remains waving by the double doors.

Eventually, we all learn to move on, make do with whatever we've got left, and bravely face whatever is next, which after all can be much greater than anything we've experienced so far. The Caulfield Sisters certainly don't cling to any idealized, nostalgic past. But once in a while, it's not such a bad thing to look through the rear windshield and remember how we got here and what it cost us.

Judy, stay.

P.S. Don’t just take my word for it. Subscribe to the magazine today! It’ll be the best $17 to $18 a year you ever spent.

P.P.S. Sorry for the long-time, no-write, but all has been eerily quiet on the Caulfields front. Isn’t it amazing how much buzz this band has gotten considering that they don’t perform very often and almost never record anything? Truly a testiment to their greatness, I think.

P.P.P.S. Sleater-Kinney's new album, The Woods, totally fucking rocks, just like everyone's been telling you.