As I sat at a marvelous fish fry held by friends last night, I ran into some new people who. We were going to leave earlier than we did but sometimes synchronicity happens with people and one hour led into countless hours until we all realized that we needed to head home.

I’m not sure any of us wanted to go but as grown ups, you know something wonderful is happening it still has to come to an end.

The band played on a stage in the backyard where the musicians performed Delta Blues to the point I wondered if I was in Memphis and coolers filled with beer lined the backyard and never seemed to empty. Football scores for everyone’s favorite team (and believed me it varied) were shared from the two televisions running in the house and from a few of us who were following along on Twitter. We talked of ghosts, sports and politics and what could be and what would never be again.

The fish was fresh, soaked in buttermilk and then fried and the hushpuppies had bits of onion mixed delicately in the cornmeal. White beans sat in aluminum pans heated by sterno lights. Homemade desserts were passed out every 20 minutes until we laughed that we were going into an insulin coma.

Children ran about the yard around the stage chasing a litter of kittens that the owners of the house have not been able to find homes for thus far. The kittens would occasionally sneak on the stage as the band continued to play Sonny Boy Johnson and Stevie Ray Vaughn.  And for the first time in months, there was a slight chill in the air that promised fall, my favorite time of the year.

Yet it was the conversation that compelled us to stay. We teased a Herman Cain fan as this was a very bipartisan crowd and he teased us (we kidded that we won that argument when I said “Two words, Jon Hunstman dude!”), we talked about Occupy Nashville, we discussed about getting older, pottery, our favorite local pubs, how Nashville is just a bunch of small towns glooped together and more. We shared our similarities more than we shared our differences, something I didn’t know that I needed but I did more than air I guess. There was no strategizing and finagling and disagreeing about politics and pop culture.  It was, as I said, more than that. It was one of those moments of synchronicity for a few of us, something we readily admitted to each other. I did not know these people 24 hours ago but I know them now. And I want to continue to know them because of reasons I cannot easily explain.

Sometimes you don’t know what you need until it arrives.

And the best part, is it felt good. Better than I can describe in these brief  words yet I feel it is important to remember the power of moments like these. You see, this chance encounter made me want to write more than I have in a year and that is a gift indeed.

I forget that these are the times where you feel very alive for the right reasons which seem small but are enormous in the scope of things. There are some moments which are hard to explain yet important.

Cleansing the soul is a good thing especially when you didn’t even know it was dusty.