Bridges, home

1990 say the release of a fairly obscure album by Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro, Walking On A Wire.  It's one of my favorite albums, and deserves much wider play than it got.   Lowen and Navarro wrote Pat Benatar's smash hit, We Belong.  Talented songwriters, they began writing and recording for themselves.

One of that album's songs is Seven Bridges.  It is astonishing in how it captures the cycle of our own growth, maturity, and old age.  Particularly astonishing is that it avoids the faux profundity of so much rock music. Looking back after nearly a quarter century, the song still speaks deeply of that voyage from youth to the end of the road.  It combines hope, and defiance, and mature recognition of just what Life is about in a way not often seen.

I'd embed a video, except there doesn't seem to be one.  The album and the song were pretty obscure, and now that Lowen has come down with Lou Gehrig's Disease and retired from performing, it seems that there won't be one.  That seems to add to the poignancy:

Now Life's sometimes a battle,
you just try to get what you're after:
A World filled with stories you won't live to tell.
But going on is all we know - like rivers always flow.
It seems the years just fly right past
while the days go by so slow.

But the feeling that surrounds me
brings the heart back from the stone
and shines a light that lets me see
to cross the seven bridges home.

And it goes like this forever
so don't ever feel alone.
The same old road that brought you here
crosses seven bridges home.

I think that I'll be able to wrap things up at FOB Borepatch in Austin over the nest three or four months, and return home permanently to hearth and home and family.  For the first time in a while, the light in the distance is maybe - maybe - not an oncoming train, but instead shining to let me see to cross the seven bridges home.

A man knows that one day
there's always an end to the Highway.
He knows what's before him
he won't run away.
Because away is never far enough,
and freedom's just a bluff.
But from somewhere down deep inside
comes the peace he's always dreamed of.

And the feeling that surrounds me
brings the heart back from the stone
and shines a light that lets me see
to cross the seven bridges home.

It's not an end, it's a beginning.  But it's true: a man knows what's required of him, and won't flinch from his duty.  You do what has to be done, because it has to be done - despite the cost in heartache and treasure.

Women do this, too, as Mom would be quick to remind me.

Thank you for this song, Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro.  It has been a comfort to me through the years, and especially in the last twelve months.  We can pray for a miracle of modern medicine to stop the ravages of Lowen's affliction.  If that hope is in vain, then may this song of his have as much meaning to him on his journey as it has been to mine.