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Leaving Home to Find


Leaving Home to Find It

Ann, Nate and I made a 'spontaneous' overnight trip on Friday. Seems like we were gone for a week. Being in another world, even if it is only three hours away, does something to reset your internal frame of reference, including the cerebral timing machinery. Being in someone else's world is always unsettling to me, usually in a positive way.

To hang out with a friend's friends, to travel among my former neighborhoods and the ghosts of past lives, to compare and contrast all of this against where I live and who I am now is a bit like standing the kids up against the kitchen wall to see how much they have grown since some former time, marked in pencil on the door jamb.

So, on Friday, we traveled some beautiful miles to Boone, North Carolina, to attend a performance by "Dennis Stamper and Friends". Dennis and family are True Friends. He and I have known each other through some wonderful and terrible times. Music is one thing that brought us together. When he found out we were coming this weekend, he requested that Nathan be among his performing "friends" (the 'regulars' are a multi-instrumented beer-making forensic toxicologist and a spritely deep-fried southern-drawling lady lawyer).

So, Friday evening, at Dennis' request, and after forgetting his lyrics twice and making an amazingly graceful recovery, Nathan sang one of our favorite songs of the many he has written. I thought it might be worthwhile to share the lyrics with you.


Over Your Shoulder
Lyrics and Music by Nathan First
Copyright 2001

When the sunrise and sunset lie both in the east
When it don't really matter what matters the least
When you're dining a'lonely and you long for a feast
No, don't look over your shoulder, I'll be at your feet.

When the world gets so angry the sea fights the land
When it grows so divided that no one can stand
When all you can do is dig holes in the sand
No, don't look over the ocean, I'll be in your hand.

When the tools of destruction run brave and run free
When you don't even know who's the known enemy
When you're being the best lost and blind you can be
No, don't look over the desert, I'll be at your knee.

When you only have inches and must give a mile
When the devil's the jury and brings you to trial
When you know that your only defense is denial
No, don't look all the world over, I'll be in your smile.


Posted by fred1st on August 18, 2002 7:02 AM |

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