1 post tagged “little lessons from the universe”
Last night, my new friend Dolores and her family brought together their whole tribe for a celebration to kick off their new adventure. They are picking up and moving west to Colorado. I am saddened and feel a little robbed--I have only really known Dolores for months not years but from the minute I met her she was nothing but true--the kind of person who elicits a deep sigh and instant relaxation into yourself.
The party was beautiful. A huge funky art space, good home cooked food, a tremendous cast of fabulous people. But more importantly, set up at the end of the studio, a stage full of instruments and an open mic. All afternoon and into the wee hours of the morning talented people drifted up on stage to play in endless combinations--songs I haven't heard played live in what feels like a lifetime: Not Fade Away, the Weight, the Joker, standard after standard by Muddy Waters, CCR, the Beatles. And me, I was square in the middle of the dance floor, doing what feels at natural as breathing.
Twirling and grinding to music strummed on a guitar feels to me like being home. Growing up was punctuated with my mom's guitar, my brother and a gang of friends banging out "Momma's Got a Squeezebox" my father singing into a wooden spoon as for a mic. As a teenager at forbidden parties, we gathered around the kid with the guitar playing Simon and Garfunkel and the Dead and breathed in homemade music along with smoke and beer fumes. In college our liquor soaked nights at the seedy Irish pub were whipped up into a frenzy as the Lapdogz (my friends' cover band) played and I sang along at the top of my lungs from the floor and danced my heart out.
Homemade music has been the soundtrack to some of the happiest memories of my youth. Magical first kisses in a parking lot with the music drifting down from the porch above. Music soaked lazy spring afternoons in highschool and college those days when possibilities stretched out like an endless highway.
Back in that day, everyone was a rock star in waiting.
Last night, long after my son had been packed away with my friend Jackie's dear mother for an impromptu sleepover, there I was in my bright orange shoes, little white Christmas lights a twinkling, dancing from a deep memory of hope, joy and silliness and unadulterated bliss bubbling through my veins. Touching a place inside me long waiting to be reborn.
