I think I'll be a zombie for Halloween. (No costume or makeup required.)

The kids have the weirdly named hand foot mouth disease. The poor things have sores on their tongues which are very painful for them. This, of course, is very inconvenient for me. They're staying home from daycare and I'm up early with them in the mornings, following that with a 2nd shift job that doesn't get me home until late each night. A smart man would hurry home and jump right into bed in order to maximize his limited opportunities for sleep. A smarter man than I, indeed. You should see my tired eyes. This zombie wants a nice, long nap.

I drove home tonight watching out my window as the moon's reflected light followed me across the dam. Newton Dominey's "This Time Of Year" played softly on the iPod and I found myself wondering how a songwriter can so perfectly get the right mood, instrumentation, and words to play together so well as this. It's a song like this that helps me be at peace with the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm doing in life. It asks questions about loneliness and reveals the writer's hopes for what Heaven is like.

The yearning uncertainties sung amidst such a warmly produced tune mirror my own introspective moments' thoughts. If I don't learn how to stop stressing over every little thing, I'll never become whoever it is that I'm supposed to be. Surely, this is not it. Lonely in crowds and unsure of who I am is no way to make a life.

That said, I don't mind that I'm quiet by nature. Getting lost in a masterpiece of a Van Morrison record is a wonderful way to spend some time if I'm going to be alone. And I like that other people's feelings matter to me. It can be a rough life and I do more than my share of worrying, but on these quiet nights when just the right music is playing, I feel certain that I'm looking at life correctly and asking the right questions.

Anyway, that moon is absolutely beautiful tonight. I wonder how many people over the course of time have looked up at it on a noiseless night and felt peace in not having to have the answers. It demands nothing of us. It simply is what it is and it welcomes our ruminative minds.

(Moon picture by Leesa White)