In response to "Wish I Had a River"

I posted the comment below in response to a friend's post on her blog bullseye, baby! about the power of music to reconnect to universal spirit.

So wise, my friend.

At 51 I find the ache you describe has gone and a lovely peace has arrived. I remember sensing this peace in some older (50's) adults I knew and loved when I was a child -- Mrs. Robinson, my next door neighbor, and Mr. Copenhaver, one of my mother's co-workers. I distinctly remember thinking then how I looked forward to arriving at my 50's. I though maybe then I too could live every day "in my skin" with the peace I felt emanating from these two people who understood how to be a friend to an eight year-old, burdened by adult questions and concerns.

I think back now about how Mrs. Robinson was deeply grounded in her love of Christ and her evangelical religious community. I sat in her kitchen on Saturdays and visited with her while she fried up a mountain of chicken for Sunday's church supper. I once walked by the small building on a Sunday and felt the brick walls pulsing with the organ music and the booming voices singing joyful gospel songs. I couldn't make out the words, but I could feel the message.

Each day after school I walked to my mother's office with my younger brother and waited there to walk home with her at the end of her day. I remember Mr. Copenhaver occasionally taking a break from work to stand on his head. My mother explained it was part of his daily meditation practice. Mr. Copenhaver was the only man I knew whose energy never seemed to feel angry or overbearing.

How lucky I feel today that I knew these two people at such a tender and vulnerable time in my life. I think knowing them planted a seed that I believed in enough to spend the next 40 years trying to learn how to nurture.

Even though the ache is gone, I still get lost in the business of everyday life, and music still serves as a lovely gateway into a garden blooming with self- energy- and universe-awareness. Thank you for sharing with such beautiful openness and love, words and reflections that speak to the hearts of so many.