So I’m sitting in O’Hare – at a cool picnic table in this atrium, listening to a band play some fairly sweet jazz…  And it just makes me happy to sit and hear them.  Most people are in a hurry and just walk on by.  Every now and then someone will stop and stand to listen to their banter for a moment – the slick, smoky sound…  Even rarer, someone will stop and take a seat and listen for a few – smile a bit…  heads bobbing, feet tapping, smiles breaking out…  little grins and eye contact made between the band members and the few of us who are sitting in the “audience”…

They’re playing “Signed Sealed Delivered…”  and doing a prety good job of it too.  There’s a little blond boy down the way who’s running around, dancing circles aroudn his stroller…  A young girl in her 20’s sitting at a table looks like she wants to get up and dance.  She’s practically floating in her chair, loose and smooth.  The round TSA guard with a bleached mohawk stops and breaks into dance while his partner shakes her head and grins.  An older woman with a Rudolph the reindeer headbanc is sashsaying up and down the terminal while she talks on her phone, just feeling the music.

And me, who’s sitting here in the middle of the concourse, at a picnic table painted blue that kind of reminds me of “Starry Night,” listening to talent and joy and beauty in the midst of the busy-ness of O’Hare…  my head’s bobbing, grin’s cheesily and sits at the back, observing, and taking it all in.  And in this moment, they’re giving of themselves, and we who sit and listen are recieving it.  There’s a unity there that I love.  And now, in the contentment of this moment, before I walk down the terminal with its flickering, flourescent lighting, I’m going to put the computer away and just listen for a few more minutes of peace…

Thanks Chicago…