Anne Lamott Defines My Life

Yesterday I started reading Anne Lamott's "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith."  I've had it for awhile but didn't pick it up until I was headed off to sit pool side with friends and soak up the sun on my last few days of freedom before the school year begins.


This afternoon, after posting about Mumford this morning, I was in the sun again.  On a lawn chair in my backyard, a sky empty of clouds above me, the same shade of blue as the rooftops in Santorini, I stumbled across a passage so perfect, I had to set the book down and remind myself to breathe.  It is incredible the way--when we most need it--the right book, the right person, the right anything come along at the exact perfect time and reminds us that we aren't nearly as alone as we thought ourselves to be.  


The passage I read: "...music is about as physical as it gets: your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix, it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way." 


My father is a musician, my brother is a musician, my mother has a lovely singing voice but never cared to perform and I, once, called myself a singer.  The last few months, at church, I have rediscovered my voice and--over the last year thanks to good music from a dear friend--I have been reminded of how song unites both the singer and the listener.  An intimate concert at a local venue, singing alone in the shower, finding the melody in the way an old woman speaks to her husband as they shuffle down the grocery store aisle, arms entwined, loving even these small mundane moments because it is in them that they are reminded all over again of how good it is to share a life with the person you love--their is music to be heard everywhere if we only open ourselves to the song.


Henry Miller wrote, "To sing, you must first open your mouth."  I believe in this as much as I believe in a universe created to fill me with an awe that stops my breath, as much as I believe in a god that wants me to be happy, as much as I believe in the power of love to revive even the most closed and broken heart.  And, because I believe Miller's words, I have been trying to open my mouth as often as I can, to speak for those who cannot, to praise those who feel unworthy, to love those who have forgotten how easy love should be.


In keeping with Lamott's words, with Miller's, and with my own commitment to making this life as beautiful for the people I love as possible--and yes, for the record I do include myself in that group--here is the song of the day.