Tuesdays With Anthony

I had lunch with a dear friend today.  I've missed him, and our afternoons together.  Anthony is a minister, and to know anything about me whatsoever is to know that this isn't my usual crowd.  Last year Anthony and I resumed our friendship after sixteen years of absence, and it has been just like a day at a familiar, friendly beach.  The tide goes out, then washes back in and leaves a clean, wet sandy beach to write new words on.  We exhausted our Tuesday afternoons and took a break for these last six months, but now we seem to have resumed these sessions again.

I'm a person who, as obsessive as I am with music, has an individual ringtone on my phone for just about everyone I know.  The song I chose last year for Anthony was "Ooh Child," an old 70s tune by The Five Stairsteps.  "Some day, we'll get it together and we'll get it all done, someday when your head is much lighter.  Some day, we'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun..."  It's such a hopeful song - something I don't know much about - and there was a day after we'd spent hours talking and sharing, that I heard it randomly and knew it would forever be my Anthony song. 

I believe in signs.  Anthony would say a sign from God, I say a sign of destiny.  A sign to show me every so often that I'm on the path I should be, even when I don't always know why.  I've been stalled this summer, creatively speaking.  There are things going on that I've not been wanting to write about.  Big things I have been grappling with, that I'm not quite certain how to process.  I've done a hell of a lot of work on myself this year, sorting through things in the attic that is my mind - discarding what I've kept for so long, saving what can serve me in the future.  I've put myself out into the world, regardless of the repurcussions.  There has been support and backlash both - some have been surprising to see where the loyalties lie. 

Sitting at lunch with Anthony today, involved in a debate over our differences in God vs. Science, it was a refreshing reminder that there is someone I can trust to have these discussions with.  We are willing to accept the other's differences while being comfortable enough to express our views, without the consequence of judgment.  I don't have to be politically correct.  I can just be myself.

As I walked away from one of his warm hugs, I could feel the thoughts already wanting to express themselves, stimulated by a meeting of the minds.  I was ready to be me again.

And I swear, as I turned on the car, my iPod set to "shuffle," and the next song to come on didn't sink in at first, but there it was.  My sign. 

Welcome back, Tuesdays.  I've missed you.