| Two stories compete for my attention this Easter morning as the Texas heat starts
pretending it’s summer and it’s 95 already.
One involves pastel eggs hidden in dewy grass, chocolate rabbits, and very docile bunnies.
The other involves a brutal public execution, a borrowed tomb, and the most shocking reversal in human history.
Both are true. Both matter. But only one changes everything.
Red Blazer Days
Easter morning in our house went off like a starter pistol.
My brothers and I would tear through the rooms hunting eggs and baskets, then commence the serious business of consuming as much chocolate as humanly possible before anyone noticed. Then came the transformation: Sunday best.
The 6-year-old version of me had firm opinions about fashion. My favorite red blazer was non-negotiable. But no blazer was complete without my 007
gun and holster strapped underneath, two Hot Wheels cars wedged into my pockets, and the general confidence of a man who had already solved breakfast.
Mom, meanwhile, was an act of art. She made her own hat for every Easter, always elegant, always a surprise. She covered her shoes in matching fabric, pinned on the corsage Dad had brought her, and led us out to the big blue Oldsmobile like a parade marshal who also happened to be the most beautiful woman in town.
The sermon, I will confess, was not always riveting for a 6-year-old. I had a system: Hot Wheels tucked inside a hymnal. Or Mom would quietly hand me a pen and paper so I
could draw airplanes. The Lord, I suspect, was amused.
After church came the real prize: cousins, grandparents, Easter dinner, the beautiful noise of a large family filling every room.
What We Miss
I think about those gatherings more as I get older, not less.
Earlier this year my friend Joe in
Boston described holiday chaos with 25 people at every dinner, and I felt something I can only describe as a mild, loving envy. Living far from family is a choice, and like all choices, it carries a price. The big gatherings happen less now. The cousins scatter. The grandparents are gone. The Oldsmobile is a memory.
But the feeling of it, that specific warmth of belonging to something larger than yourself, never quite leaves. It just changes shape.
A Personal Resurrection
Last fall I visited friends in Florence, Italy, and something happened that I can only describe as a calling.
I toured the Florence Academy of Art, one of the finest classical art schools in the world. Standing in those studios, where students draw from live models in the same quality of light, in the same neighborhoods where Da Vinci and Michelangelo once worked, something in me shifted. The romance of it. The weight of it. The terrifying excitement of it.
I signed up. Five weeks. Starting Tuesday.
There is no grand plan behind this. I am not quitting my job. I am not expecting to emerge a master. A solid three- or four-year program would really move the needle; five weeks is a beginning, not a conclusion. But I will work 10-hour days in class, come home to homework, and push limits I have grown too comfortable ignoring. That is enough of a reason.
Later today I board a flight for London, then I fly to Florence, pick up a rental car, and drive to a tiny apartment on the outskirts of town, arriving on Easter Monday.
I will be alone. Really alone. Perhaps for the first time since
before I was married.
I will admit: The silence intimidates me more than the drawing does. I am not someone who has spent much time with no agenda, no family, no one needing anything.
I hope to fill the off hours with new friendships, long walks through Tuscan hills, and the particular joy of being beautifully lost.
But I am stepping into this without a map. Which, I suppose, is exactly the point.
Serving No Purpose
Dreams do not require justification.
This trip is impractical. Finding five weeks in a schedule like mine requires real rescheduling, real faith, and a sustained effort to ignore the voice cataloguing all the reasons it was a bad idea.
But here is what I have come to believe: Dreams that require no sacrifice are not really dreams. They are
preferences. Real dreams cost something, frighten you a little, and make the people around you raise an eyebrow.
Which brings me to you.
Light the Fuse
What just popped into your head?
Not the responsible answer. The first one, the one you immediately started explaining away.
Was it a place you have always meant to go? A skill you quietly abandoned somewhere in your 20s? A version of yourself you set aside when life got loud and practical?
That dream did not disappear. It just went quiet. It has been waiting.
You do not need a reason. You do not need perfect timing, because the timing will never be perfect. You do not need permission.
What you need is to light the fuse, throw the bomb, hold your ears, and be ready for an explosion that enriches your life beyond what you can currently imagine.
The question is not whether you can afford to pursue it. The question is whether you can afford not to.
What is one bold, impractical, slightly irrational step you could take today, not someday, today, to make it real?
Dreams are meant to be lived. Not
remembered. Not mourned. Lived.
Happy Easter.
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