The Cross Is in the Ballpark
Last week, while packing for my Michigan trip, I downloaded Paul Simon’s “The Obvious Child,” one of my favorite songs from his songbook. Full of veiled meanings and startling imagery woven into the fabric of generations and lives, the song moves me. It always has, in ways that I could never explain. The song makes me alternatively sad and happy—I bop to its rhythm, I sway to its gentleness. It was the perfect song to revisit as I went into this weekend, which presented me with aspects of life that I haven’t yet and may never experience, but for me, the song presented an absolute and wide-reaching summary of the choices that you make and how you express those choices. The song is about life, and life is what I saw happening this weekend. What I saw are not only chapters in my life, but major chapters in other people’s lives, and it was nice to see some of it and be allowed to share in some of it. It’s everything, from kids to letting go of kids to supportive family to getting married.
While the weekend let me see a lot of milestones in people’s lives, it also reaffirmed for me the choices in my own life; while I’m not following the typical path set out for someone from Saline, Michigan, for someone who is of Mexican descent, for someone who once poured over wedding magazines with the recent bride, I am following what I want and am extremely happy with my choices. Everyone makes decisions that are for themselves, and while your path may not be mine, it is no less a valid path—it’s okay to take another trail, and I’m happy for those who chose something other than I did. I could very well choose what they chose later on down the road, but for now, I’m content to still amble along, taking in the scenery given to me by others and wondering how I’ll share my own moments as I go along.
A lot happened this weekend, and even as I think about it, I realize that it was a pretty significant weekend as I continue to move forward. Like “The Obvious Child”, there were many veiled meanings and startling imagery as I bopped and swayed through the weekend. It is only now, when I give free reign to my thoughts and sit down to write, that I can see what a compact but affirming few days it was. I’ll be trying to write out the most significant parts as they strike me over the course of the next few days, hopefully getting everything down before I go away on vacation. In the meantime, go listen to “The Obvious Child”. It’s Paul Simon, so you definitely won’t be sorry.
