A gentle soul.

Tonight Brendan wandered into an openmic nite that I have hosted for the past ten years and wanted to play some tunes. I've known Brendan from playing some of the same coffee shops in So Cal for the past 20 years. At one point I remembering struggling with how to relate to Brendan. I wasn't sure if he had a real job. He played music in coffee shops at night. He was a devoted husband and dad during the day, but he didn't fit the "norm", with a normal job or lifestyle. We all had regular jobs and cut our hair and he seemed to be still stuck in the 60's. I explained this to a fellow musician one night and he turned to me and said that he too had trouble with where to fit Brendan into his thinking until he realized that Brendan was just a gentle soul. That is exaclty what I needed to hear. I simply put Brendan and his whole image and placed them in a box in my brain and labeled it "Gentle Soul: handle with care" and we have been great friends ever since.