#Sunny came home with permission full#

We gave ourselves permission to play.Īnd so the next day of camp, I was standing on the small foundation of the one enthusiastic lip sync friend and a husband who I could force do another. Men who are otherwise professionals rolled on the floor like Madonna and pretended to be ballerinas. We put our kids to bed and played games where adults made car sounds and formed animals with a team. We hugged old friends and got to know new ones that first day, with family games and meals around big tables together and monster games in the water and a campfire with music at night. We gathered with 25 families, nearly 100 people, at a lakefront cabin retreat, a playground and craft shack and trampolines on the lake-filled magic zone where shame was not invited to the party. “Have songs ready, and we’ll see if people step up.” But I was ready to put my failed idea to bed.Īnd then we went to camp. “We can let it happen organically,” others encouraged. I felt the lip sync-the lip sync of my life-fading into nothingness. I still had only the one other participant. But in adulthood, a cautious awareness of other people’s feelings, of the ability for things to fail, of the potential for a major social crash and burn has pulled me back from this bravery. In high school, I would say to my friends, “We are doing this,” and we would do it. I was in my youth-I used to plan social gatherings with little regard to what other people would be willing to do. I am not a bold organizer of adult events.

“I can’t decide what to do for my lip syncing song… There are so many directions to go!” And just like that, a partner in my passion. Was this meant to be? Was this lip sync my life’s calling? Was I a fool for trying to force this thing into being? And then… I pictured my husband’s staring face from the first time I showed him. I put together the event invite instructions, with a deadline to get back to me about which song they selected.Ĭrickets. She asked if I’d give instruction for other people to pick their song ahead of time. I told the organizer of the weekend my idea of having a lip sync show. She gave me direction-“more crying,” or “throw the tissues at this point,” or “shake the microphone more here.” “Good mom,” she’d say. She watched me do it 800 times between that afternoon and Family Camp weekend. When I was done, he said, “Too long.”īut I was undeterred. He stared at me like the weirdo he knew I was when we got married. I showed my husband my newfound calling-to lip sync this song-when he got home from work. In just 4 short months I’d be in a place where everything else is left behind, where we were vacated from work and responsibilities of daily life, where we were together, and we were given one instruction: Play. And then I thought, where can I get a captive audience to love what I can do when I move my lips at just the right moment? Where will people allow me to show them me, raw and strange? Where will they be unable to escape to find something else to do besides watch me do this lip sync?Īnd it came to me: Family Camp. But I had to find a larger group to share it with. My husband would also be blessed to see a performance when he got home from work. Yes, my kids could see it later that day. It felt so right that it was a gift I had to share with the world. And it felt so right that it was as if all of my life had lead to this moment-me, alone in my house, holding a cardboard microphone I had pulled from my daughter’s dress up clothes bin and pretending these loud wails were coming from my own mouth.

I spent the rest of the hour I had before kids came home from school listening to the song on repeat and learning the nuances, the breaths, the deep and raw feelings felt by the country rock singer. And I was pulled from my work into a purpose so clear I had to say yes: I must learn to lip sync this song.

#Sunny came home with permission full#

I realized, though, that the song I was listening to and now singing along to full blast was more like rapids-each long note like it’s own waterfall of emotion, the waterfalls growing in size through the wailing end. The music was background, calming, and atmosphere-setting, carrying me along through my work like I was riding a raft along a river on a sunny day. I was working at my desk and humming along to the music that was playing from my computer speakers.