I’m hanging with a big group of friends listening to music in Marathon, which seems a long way to go to hear folks play who live almost down the street from where I live, but sometimes you just have to get out of the house, and it’s a nice break when you do. We’re scattered all over town, but if you’ve ever been to Marathon, you know we’re still pretty close together.

The weather here is way more than decent because the area is having a wet summer, and everything is green and the air is cool and delightful. The house where I’m staying is just on the outskirts of town which means I can walk, and I’ve been walking. It feels good. There’s a nice trail and a park and scenery, from the mountains on the horizon, to the big sky above. Makes you glad to be alive.

Us amateurs have done some playing and singing ourselves, which in the eyes of the Lord, still counts because we’re raising our voice in song. And it’s nice the same friends here to hear professionals are willing to suffer through our warbling and still hold us close, as friends. It might be a tribute to their tolerance for pain or just their willingness to love us no matter what. Or it may simply be we’re all here to celebrate the act of creating art no matter the degree or level of skill; it’s our collective effort to dip our hands in ochre and press them to the wall of a cave. To say, we live.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale