I know you now Cindy Walker

I turned 32 yesterday. I know. It's young. I also know it sounds either young or old depending on your distance from that number. It feels really young. Especially when wearing the too small, slip-on ruby slippers my mother gave me for the walk over the yellow-brick-road-wrapping paper she taped to the kitchen floor, I felt delightfully young. And celebrated.

My grown-up brothers and their wives and daughters and girlfriends wore cheap, plastic sherriff's stars as party favors, in honor of my Dodge City, Kansas roots.

Those stars dangled from their collars as we ate smoked salmon on brown bread with capers and a spinach and strawberry salad. I slurped coffee, coffee, coffee as I unwrapepd the presents, and saw the way I look through my family's eyes. A journal, a certificate explaining the story behind my Irish last name, a DVD copy of the "Wizard of Oz," the Real Simple magazine subscription, and music. A mix of Irish and Kansas rose up in me like a sentimental tornado.

Then I opened one of the last presents and found her: Cindy Walker. Released on the Lost Highway label, You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker is a collection of her songs sung by Willie Nelson. On the ride home from Raleigh, NC I played it over and over and made peace with my soul, and how sometimes my heart feels like a broken record, like it skips, and aches a little more most people's. It's also why I choose my own company and a guitar over a crowd.

I hope, no matter how old or young I get, that that never changes.