There have been few times in my life when I have felt more free, more myself than when reading to and performing with our son.
Reading to him helped me rediscover my love of performing, and of story.
Singing with him helped me rediscover my love of song, and music as a thing made.
In those moments we were deeply together, sharing experience richly, across the three decades that persistently endeavor to separate us.
In those moments I was me, not any of the formal presentations of myself. And that freedom drew us together, hand in hand. Two people, ageless, sharing a love of tune and tale and, more often than not, a certain level of silliness.
When he finds himself mired in those tough questions of how to repay the things our parents did for us, I hope he remembers this.
And knows we’re all good.