2003-05-22 
 

dancing

This morning on the way to work, I heard Lee Ann Womack's I Hope You Dance. I'm not a big fan of country music, but this song always gets me. (Yes, I own it, I'm a sentimental geek...and quite happy about it.)

The refrain in particular sticks with me. I think of my Mom and Dad, who sent me out into the world with similar sentiments. Never telling me what to do, just what they wished for me.

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
Dance....I hope you dance.
...
Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along
Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone?

I got in the car this evening to go home and turned it on to hear the song playing again. I can be dense sometimes, but when the universe shouts I pay attention. Gave a call home and had a great conversation with Dad. I try and call about once a week, but life and the moment we're in often gets in the way of the to of us doing more than exchanging news and passing along love. Mom and I have always have an easier time of getting deep into it when we talk. I think there's enough of her mother in both of us to want to explore our deepest thoughts and share them. Tonight, Dad and I talked about everything and nothing and had one of those deeper conversations. We both laughed a lot and yes, when I told him about the song, it choked me up. (told you I was sentimental)

If I haven't said it before in this space, I love you both very much. I thank you for always being honest with me and accepting of my own honesty. I thank you for letting me fall down now and again, as much as it must've hurt to not snatch me back from learning things in my own way. I thank you for congratulating me in the times when that fall turned into a "triumphant dismount", and I thank you for helping me get up in the times when I landed flat on my back without ever saying "I told you so." Now that I'm an adult, I thank you for letting me pick you up now and again when you need it, without ever expecting me to. I thank you for becoming more than parents to me as I've gotten older, without ever stopping caring about me as only parents can. Most of all, I thank you for always encouraging me to dance.

Labels: dose of mikey, shout out

* posted by me at 12:42 AM

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