After dinner last night we cleared the table, divvied up some change from the change jar and played our first family Blackjack game.
Our oldest son spent last weekend camping with the Boy Scouts and that's where the notion came from to play together. He was the dealer and was open to suggestions from his dad and I as we guided him through the etiquette of Vegas gambling (for minors).
The eight year old had great cards. I had terrible cards. Together we experienced the high highs of winning and the low lows of losing and I was taken back to when I was the eight year old at the table with my brothers and I experienced the flying and the crashing back then. Beginners luck is alive and well. And then it isn't.
It's raining over here and it can no longer be denied that the fall is slipping away and that winter is coming. The calendar is filling up with all the things that come along in November and December. The Sunday school program is written, the basketball practices have begun, the choir is getting ready for their concert, the shows will be played in mildly festive dress. Soon the rain will turn to snow.
As in cards, some days I feel like going all in and other days I feel like folding. Some days I think the only way to play is fully committed to the risk and seeing what happens and other days I think I need to conservatively calculate the moves and be patient. Wait for the cards to come.
I'm still in my pajamas and bathrobe. I'm on my second cup of coffee. I wrote a song yesterday when I was at work since lunch was slow. Our band got interviewed for a Nebraska magazine last week and it was awesome. Emily and I spoke at a career fair about what it's like to "work" as musicians. Both the interview and the high school were times to reflect on how far we've come. Some steps were dumb luck, others were calculated and slow. All of it happened because we stayed in the game.
Ante in, play the cards, stay in the game.