50 Years of Surface Tension

The rain slid through the steam and hit the water of the hot spring-fed pool. After each splat of rain, the pool sent up another drip straight into the air. Our heads were just above the mineral pool's surface, and the rising drops rose to just under eye level before falling again. They were fat, each drop rising like a narrow pyramid with a sphere hanging just over it before collapsing back into the water. The surface tension played a trick on what seemed logical. The molecules' attraction to each other is so strong, it allowed liquid water to rise for a moment against the pull of gravity.

It was Scott's 50th birthday, and we were celebrating at a nearby resort, just the two of us.

This year has been a hard year for Scott. The challenges he has encountered are different than he has ever experienced. But, he has been through hard times before, and knowing that you have survived difficulty helps you understand that you will survive again. I remember a marriage that was hard. Scott does too. But our marriage isn't hard, even though we experience hard things. With each other, it is easy to share challenges, a home, a life, a future.

At the beginning of this year, not knowing all that was ahead for him, Scott set a goal for himself: arrange, record, and release 50 cover songs, each chosen for its special meaning to him. He set out to post a fresh take on each of the 50 songs every Friday. Through the year, he covered country songs, punk songs, alternative rock songs, pop songs, and more. I would hear him play around with an idea over and over, and sometimes he would have to put it away to come back to later and choose a different song for the week. But, he would come back to the hard ones and work through them, creating something unique and beautiful. He finished this project even though he works some days very long hours, even though it may have been the hardest year yet of his life, and even when he might have felt like doing something else. 

As each hard thing pummeled Scott this year, he released another song. A seemingly impossible day. He'd follow it with a blog post and a song release that Friday. A friend commented on Scott's project: "You hear about people setting goals all the time, but achieving them is a different story." Scott made it happen. (If you would like to hear them all, you can find them here.)

He did all this while also able to make me laugh, every day. 

Maybe a buoy could be an appropriate metaphor for Scott, pushed down, but rising back to the surface. But he does more than that. He floats above. He's like those impossible drops that hang in the air after hitting the surface. 

Scott, thank you for defying gravity. I love you.