$5 Umbrella

 If you read the "gift" post, you might be wondering how the night went.  It was an amazing night, an amazing venue, amazing company, perfect weather, and a great show.  Lisa is a comfortable performer...like a minstrel in your living room, singing songs about love, lost love, and old camp songs and about what's presently happening in her life - which right now was all about being a first-time mother.

Anytime you go to a show given by someone whose last hit was over a decade ago, you expect it to be like finding an old LP.  You dust it off and listen to the hits that made you dance...putting the record back in it's sleeve after the reminisce is over.  If there are new songs, they lack the magic of freshness of the earlier hits (in her case; Stay (I missed you), I Do, etc) so when she pulled out the piece of paper with the lyrics to the song she had written the night before I didn't plan on being very impressed.

What came was a song I've been thinking about the entire week.

The song was called $5 umbrella - imagery really only understood by those who have been caught by an unexpected storm while walking through Manhattan.  All of a sudden, the people who have, just moments ago, been selling I Heart NY shirts now have a table filled with umbrellas of all shapes and sizes.  All for five dollars.

The vendors shout to every passerby the offering and its price knowing that what was a minor annoyance for the citizens of gotham was, for them, solid gold.

I have purchased many a five dollar umbrella.

Now, dear reader, you might think that I have a closet filled with umbrellas as a result.  You would be mistaken.  In fact, I don't think I have a single one.  The design of the umbrella, as well as the point of the song, is that five dollar umbrellas are meant to help you get through the present storm to more permanent shelter.  Usually these portable tents address their mission with skill, though we've all seen a poor soul struggling with an inverted twist of metal and nylon as their temporary protection succumbed to a strong wind.  But beyond the single use, a five dollar umbrella just doesn't last.

The song was striking in that it linked the imagery of the umbrella to some of the things we use to move us through our own storms.  Life comes at us unexpectedly and there are these offers of shelter.  They are inadequate and unworthy, but (kinda) keep us dry before they fail so we walk with them...for as long as they last.

As I listened to the song I thought about a scene in a T.V. series in which I have been investing my free time.  There is a tradition, with this particular collegiate club, of jumping off a tower holding an open umbrella.  Now, all of the jumpers were harnessed so, technically, they weren't using the umbrella to actually slow their fall, but regardless I would wager they weren't using five dollar umbrellas.

See, when it actually counts, we want something that lasts.  When our future depends on it, an expensive umbrella is worth the investment.  It's the difference between just surviving and truly living.  When one has the right umbrella, you are ready to make big jumps...ones you would never consider if what you held barely stopped the rain.  If you never have take the time to find (or be) the right umbrella then life is just a series of darting from building to building hoping what you carry gets you to the next doorway.

My life has piles of discarded canopies...and I've found myself on a few piles as well.  Storms come and I'm often tempted to take the offers of temporary asylum from those who call through the rain.  However, I find now that my desire is to climb to the top of the tallest building and jump, floating like a Poppins on the breeze.  I've saved my dollars and heading to the store uptown that sells the one I've been eyeing for years.  I'm hoping it will still be there when I arrive - I couldn't get there any faster than my journey has allowed.  I don't even care that I'll be soaked to the skin when I pay the craftsman because I'm not looking to stay dry.  I'm here to fly...

...and that requires more than a five dollar umbrella.