Julie Doiron ::: photo by Brittney Bush Bollay

I’ve recently rediscovered ice cream sandwiches. I had one every day with lunch when I was a kid, taking an extra twenty-five cents to school for the pleasure, but adulthood has brought a freezer filled with overcomplicated Ben & Jerry’s flavors and fancy schmancy gelato. Then I caught sight of one of the small rectangular packages in a 7-11 ice cream freezer, and a wave of nostalgia and low blood sugar passed over me. Peeling back the silver foil wrapper, biting through the chocolate and into the pale center, I remembered: there is a kind of perfection in the simplicity of the sweet vanilla ice cream layered between two slightly crisp chocolate wafers. It really doesn’t need anything else.

Julie Doiron is someone who understands the perfection of simplicity. Her guitar-and-vocals stories - some also have drums - are tiny slices of the quotidian rendered sublime by the contentment in her voice. Doiron has a clear affection for her subjects and for life in general — the title track of 2009’s I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day is “The Life Of Dreams,” and the closer is “Glad To Be Alive.” She also has the gift of restraint, avoiding any of the tinkling flourishes or breathless background vocals that might have pushed her into Rebecca Black territory. Also absent are any cringe-inducing boisterousness or overenthusiasm — it’s just one contented woman and her quiet-but-raspy voice.

You won’t feel bitter towards or resentful of Doiron, because the things that are great in her life are the things that are great in your life too:

It’s always nice to come home after getting lots done. I slip off my boots, take off all my coats, and go right into my room. I turn on my little lamp and finally sit down.

Our loves are well, sleeping just right, and I know now we’re living the life of dreams. With good people all around, we’re living the life of dreams.

Doiron doesn’t capture so much the things you think about, but the things you never do. These are the moments of peace and contentment that we pass through without thinking to mark or describe them. When reflected back at us, though, there’s a pleasant recognition: yes, those few minutes are great, aren’t they? When you get to transition from traffic and errands and queues and parking to the comfort of your private world, when you see the people you love breathing quietly in the night. Everyone knows we love Fridays. We talk about it all the time. We need someone like Doiron to point us towards the happiness we don’t see.

It was sunny this afternoon, and I drove home through Ballard with the window down and my dog in the seat next to me. In the freezer I have a box of ice cream sandwiches. This is the life of dreams.

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Julie Doiron’s April 11 show at the Tractor has been canceled, but I decided to write about her anyway.
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