You Are Home

Things have been beyond busy. Finding moments to rest in action is a goal. Sometimes it seems like we are in a wave of life and cannot find a little place to breathe. My friend was here.  He has suffered a terrible tragedy since our last visit.  He needed us, and we needed to see that he would survive.

Sometimes all we have left at the end of the day is just enough energy to watch a movie.  So we watched the charming movie "Almost Famous"  where the main character is swept up in the tour of a famous band, At one point he is on the bus, frantic to get home.  He is just a kid, but a professional kid.  A writer. He needs to get back in time to graduate from high school.  Swept up as in a hurricane with all of these eclectic managers, and musicians, and groupies. He is in over his head. On the bus, someone starts to sing "Tiny Dancer", the Elton John song. Gradually all the characters begin to sing along.  The kid turns to Penny Lane (played so well by Kate Hudson) and laments that he needs to go home.  She raises her hand with fingers fanned out in front of his face, casting a spell, and stops him.  She says to him, "you are home".

Maybe you know the movie. There are lots of painful personal dramas, lots of trouble.

The scene struck home, right in my heart.

Last night I left a house guest, a greasy kitchen, a lot of unfinished work needing attention, and went over to La Garua with my partner.  I was so tired I was dizzy.  The parking lot was full early.  I wondered what sort of dramas would be going on, and how to maintain what energy I had and not waste it on all the apparent pain that people bring, and to still be fully present. I usually don't go dancing when I am this tired.  I don't want to turn it into work, or to dance without energy.  But it seemed like an absolute need.

The milonga was in full bloom right off the bat.  Great music, all my favorite leads.  The early darkness, cold wind, and blowing leaves were all closed off behind the red drapery.  The big mirrors around the room intensify the soft light of the room.  After one tanda my head stopped throbbing, the life came back into me in the embraces of friends.

I thought about how I needed to be at home, about all that waits there.  But then I remembered,  I was home.