More Than a Feeling

You know how hearing a song can take you back to a time and place? Well, for me, a song can take me back to a feeling.

I was driving to work this morning when my progressive talk radio station went to a long commercial break. I switched to the CD player; a Van Morrison mix was loaded already. The first chords of Wild Night sounded. Not only was I instantly hanging out at my friends' former house outside Madison, Wis., but I felt different. I felt like I did when we spent weekends there listening to The Man and Tupelo Honey. But, the most intense feeling was the one of not being a parent, 'cause in my 'transport' I went to a time, a visit, before I was a mom.

It reminded me of that same feeling when I look at the picture of our travel group on the Great Wall outside Beijing. It was just a couple days before the adoption of our children would take place. While many in the group already were parents, we were not. But, looking at the lot of us, we looked different. We looked so...free!