What's on your mind ?

Every time I open Facebook this question awaits me. What's on your mind? Do you really want to know? Maybe. Maybe not. There are, at any given time a hundred different things going on in my mind. How are my kids really doing. What are their inside opinions on the world, their lives, the upcoming school year? How are things going to turn out for them? Have I given them the tools they need? Will I be able to make all the ends meet again this month and still buy school clothes and redecorate my daughters room the way she'd like? Will I be able to finally find a property lawyer before my time runs out? Why are weeds the only things that grow freely? How are my aunts and uncles andcousins  doing and when can I see them all again? Why on earth did that Guy pop up after a year and text me at 11:30? What are his intentions? Will I finish my book this year and be brave enough to try and get it published? Am I going to be single forever? How come that last one, the one I really liked turned out to be such a disappointment? Will it always be that way? How much longer will my Camry hold out? And the big one... Why the hell are addicts so freaking stubborn. That one I might actually know the answer to. I have a lot of conversations in my head. Sometimes I trot em out and run em by someone else. Sometimes they just keep me up at at night. But since Facebook asked...that is what's on my mind. What's on YOUR mind? 

"Life without music ...."

Sitting in between my Dad and Gerry Garcias heavier set twin at the Hollywood Bowl tonight was like being in a time machine. As the first notes of "Black Cow" cruised out over the crowd I was ten years old standing in the hallway in my pajamas, toes stuck to the cold metal threshold between the carpet and the linoleum of the kitchen. Holding my breath so no one would see me, hoping maybe I could catch a glimpse of "grown up time". My mom was having a rare drink..black velvet and 7up in a smoked brown 80's style glass and my dad had THE goblet. It was really just his beer glass but it was amber colored and looked like it belonged to a Knight of the Round Table. They're listening to msuic and talking about life, politics, everything. It wasn't unusual for me to wake up in what I thought was the middle of the night to the sounds of good music and laughter coming from the kitchen. Tonight I looked over and saw my parents smiling like the 30 year olds they were that night in my memory. In my family music is the glue, the equalizer. Even when we were spitting mad at each other, a song could get us talking again or explain how we felt, say sorry or I love you. Walter Becker quoted Nietzsche tonight and I'll quote them both and say "Life without music would be a mistake".