My Mom and DMB

We're visiting with my parents for a week or so - summer relaxing in an air-conditioned house in the desert heat, watching TV, beading, sewing, swimming, cooking, shopping - time spent together. One of the rituals of summer for my family for the last few years. I'm thankful that my dad is still with us (after 4 major trips to the hospital in the last year), doing pretty well, and that we get to have another summer vacation time together.

Tonight I had a wonderful time with my mother. My mother and I are pretty close, and this is usually a wonderful thing - only occasionally do I wish there were a little more distance between us, for with closeness comes... complexity, I guess. But that complexity is worth the price, because the closeness is a wonderful thing. I am truly grateful for my mother - for her generosity, her love, her intelligence, her creative talent, for her friendship.

And tonight - such a surprise. Last night my husband and I watched a concert special by the Dave Matthews Band on TV. Finding the Dave Matthews Band in the last couple of years (yes, we were very behind the times!) has been the instigation of a resurgence of the importance of music in our lives. Music was a huge part of our lives when we first met. My husband played jazz music some and ran sound for a world class community college jazz band when we met. Going to concerts and shows where my husband ran sound, or going out to hear local jazz musicians, was some of our more memorable dates. As we were first dating and then as newlyweds we were very involved in music in our churches - my husband ran sound and sometimes played keyboards, and I sang in our worship band. It was a huge part of our lives.

But about 13 years ago we burnt out. On church, on bands, on sound, on the whole scene. As we started having kids and getting involved in the daily cares of life, making and listening to music took a bit of a back seat in life - but it left a gaping hole. In the last couple of years we have begun to seek out music again, and one of the main instigators was when we listened to an interview with Dave Matthews on a PBS show (Charlie Rose). We were taken by his humility and niceness, and by the power of his (and his band's) music. We now own quite of few of his CD's and DVD's of the band's concerts.

So tonight - at dinner I was telling my parents about watching the Dave Matthews Band on TV last night, and that we had recorded the concert on their TIVO and wanted to copy it to a video tape before we leave. As we talked a little about the band, my parents said they would like to hear some of the concert. We warned them that they wouldn't like it (they like Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow, Barbra Striesand and Neil Diamond, OK?), but they still wanted to hear it. And shocker of all shockers - they liked it! My dad, who went to bed after a fairly short time, probably wouldn't want to listen to it a lot, but he still appreciated what he heard.

The big surprise for me was how my mom responded to it. We listened to the whole concert together, and another short concert DVD that I happened to have with me because it came in a CD that we had brought with us for the car ride. One thing I never expected to share with my 74-year-old mother was my love of watching the Dave Matthews Band perform! We spent the evening drinking one too many glasses of wine, eating a little chocolate, and talking about the incredible musicality of the band as they performed, and appreciating Dave's charismatic energy (which she compared to watching Frank Sinatra perform as a kid). She only complained that she couldn't understand most of the lyrics!

Tomorrow I will find her some of the lyrics (most of which she probably won't appreciate! But who knows - she really surprised me tonight...) and play her some more DMB. And while DMB lyrics are not anything like the conventional CCM lyrics that I used to listen to (which my mom never really liked, either), they are very soulful and honest and searching, which is something that I have come to appreciate incredibly. I am drawn more to those who ask deeply honest questions, than I am to those that profess to have all the answers...

I'll leave you with a short segment of Bartender, by DMB, that has become my prayer in the last two years...

"Bartender, please
Fill my glass for me
With the wine you gave Jesus that set him free
After three days in the ground"