Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Music in the car

One last picture before we started home

Goodbyes are no fun. Jennie and I did our best to make this one tolerable. Instead of leaving directly from their house, we took the girls for a short hike on a "storybook trail" at a park nearby. As you can see from the girls' expressions, there was no overcoming the melancholy of this farewell.

The trail is lined with pages from a picture book about autumn.


After the walk, Kathy jumped into Jennie's car. I guess she hoped I would not notice her absence. That ruse didn't work. It did remind her that she had forgotten something at their house, a gift of the CD of music Jennie had been playing in the car as we drove around Nashville all week.

Quick thinking Jennie popped her copy out of the car and passed it along to us. As we drove away, their music comforted us. "Skip to number 5," Kathy demanded.

"You don't want to just wait for it? We have a long ride ahead of us. You'll hear it soon."

"No, I want to hear it now."

The fifth track is "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, performed by the cast of Glee, neither of which shows Kathy knows anything about. But it wasn't the origins of the music that mattered, just the feeling. Something about that song was what she needed for the beginning of the trip.

Sign we've returned home: waking up to a pile of cats

We've been home for a week now, and in that time we've been in the car a lot: to a field trip with our Girl Scout troop, to the skatepark five times (including Taryn's triumphant first drop into the concrete bowl, and Kathy's conquering of the fear of going down ramps), to an art class about Georgia O'Keefe, to see that silly Free Birds movie, to our history/science co-op, to a Girl Scout meeting ... and more. Our friends' music has been our soundtrack as we drive to all these places.

Just yesterday, Taryn and I shared a funny moment at a stop light. "I really like listening to this because it reminds me of my friends," she said.

"That's exactly what I was thinking just now!" I replied.

So many thanks to Jennie and her girls -- for everything. We had such a fabulous time while we were with them, and the music continues to give us that warm fuzzy feeling of being with our dear friends, even at home.

 

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