A Different Sort of Sunday

Warning. Do not leave me alone with an underwater camera.

Nancy and Kelly took off this morning for college orientation at DePaul in Chicago. I came home and just generally vegged out, save for a trip to the roof, to clean off the solar panels. Yes, Al Gore loves me.

I then found the waterproof mount for the old digital camera, and commenced a taking photos of myself whilst sitting on the bottom of the pool. I am hopeless, and may never grow up. Man, it is so good to have days off like this, if only on occasion.

Today was a different sort of Sunday. The middle of the beginning of something new, post high school for Older Daughter, a trip to DePaul for her and Mom. New things to see, new places to visit, a new world out there. Dad waits at home, goes to the office each day for the next couple days, and eagerly collects the daily reports from Chicago via cellphone.

Today....no rushing off to church like a family in a (badly dressed) Normal Rockwell painting. We had the morning free, and girls slept in.

I had the ability to leisurely enjoy the LA Times on the back porch, where I came across this touching article by columnist Steve Lopez about his latest journey with Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a gifted musician troubled by mental illness.

What a wondrous, frustrating, and mysterious life this is, where a gifted musician is handicapped by mental illness. I plan on watching The Soloist very soon.

One line jumped out at me from Mr. Lopez column today, where Mr. Ayers is listening to Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, Opus 11. Mr. Ayers says, ""That's the sound of a child's heart," and later...."That's what God looks like."

Leave it to a seemingly unstable man to show us the beautiful. Who really is unstable and unsure of themselves, anyway?

Life is like that, you know.