Lights Will Guide You Home

The slightest tweaks to my schedule can sometimes bring such life. We have moved band rehearsal to Thursday nights, and so for the first time in five years, I am free on Wednesdays. I had a meeting scheduled for tonight that fell through, so I ended up with an evening to myself.

It was so nice to pick up David from the music store, drive home, warm up dinner (generously and lovingly provided by a dear friend) and watch tv with my kids. We all scattered after the show ended; Travis went home, Sarah went to the piano to work out another Adele song, Shannon headed to bed, Syd is watching another episode of 'Criminal Minds'. The boys fell into bed early. Tony is spending another late night at the store.

Perhaps one day in the future I will remember this night. Something might trigger a taste of this family time, the easy way we are comfortable with one another. The way we tease and joke with familiarity, along with the tentative way my older daughters are testing their adult wings. It comes out now in the way they speak with me; sometimes I sense their protection, even. I can't really describe it but to say that I remember the season of my life when I thought I knew enough of the world to take over. I was probably more arrogant than my girls, who are strong and somewhat indulgent of me. But isn't it the duty of the young to rise up and take our places, to assert their own knowledge and energy and step into their inheritance?

Oh, I remember those days. And now, 30 years later, I occasionally taste true wisdom and discernment and recognize how truly naive I was. But that naive energy provides the fuel you need to change the world.

Listening to Coldplay's "Fix You", and remembering a small, silly but brilliant film of Nathan Lee and Stratton Glaze (of Maida Vale) lip synching to this tune in a car headed from Florida to Virginia. They were probably being silly, playing with iMovie; I doubt they even kept the snippet of digital creativity. But I will never forget it. Their intensity, as they wrapped their faces around the lyric. Two young men, traveling across the country with relatively few cares. "lights will guide you home/and ignite your bones /and I will try to fix you"

A song from the young to the old, from the strong to the weak. From the naive to the cynic. From the future to the past the dreamers to the doers.

Funny, the older I get, the more moments I have to delight in the staggering energy and life of my family, the deeper is my acceptance. I will be ready for that hand off.

But til then, I get to do a lot more dreaming of my own.