Small House

When I was a young guy just starting out in Nashville I was fortunate to have carried with me a trade: I could frame a house and use a saw and hammer to do lots of things. It kept me employed. Because of my modest talents as a carpenter and Sarah’s adeptness at teaching art and calligraphy, we were able to buy a house – a small one, indeed – 1,200 square feet – but Sarah’s sweet spirit and eye for beauty turned it into a lovely and welcoming home. Children arrived – two of them within 18 months – so we spent weekends turning the attic into another bedroom. Then the music thing began to come true. I wrote a hit song (or rather, I wrote a song that became a hit) – and then another - and soon another. One day I bought a bunch of tickets for my kids and their friends to go to the circus. I told their parents that I would take everyone and they could have a free afternoon. The only caveat was that they had to bring their children to our house and pick them up there after our outing. They all did and they all came in – except for one guy. He didn’t come into our house. I’ve never gotten over that – he stayed outside. It seemed to me that our home was not good enough or big enough for him to enter; I still think that. I took his son to the circus and he was there to pick him up. He didn’t come in. I’m glad. Our modest dwelling would have made him uncomfortable – he would have been forced to speak with someone. He lived in a big house in which people don’t have to encounter one another. 

Sarah and I have moved up a little, but not much. We like to rub shoulders, ask our kids where they were last night, pass in the hall, eat together, do laundry, wash dishes, share towels, sleep together, talk, yell and hug. We love being a family. Being a family is beautifully dangerous. It’s where and when you learn the best things about life. It’s like a circus where we all get to put our heads in the lion’s mouth.