I laugh when I think about it now. She is thirty-four and single but wants to be married with a family. I am double her age and single and have been married and divorced twice. Never-the-less, we are both single, both female, and both roommates out of societal and financial necessity as we wait for the charming prince or, alternately, an apartment to come available in Rivendell.

So it happens that sometimes she brings men home. She meets them at various places – in the wilderness, at WFR training, at church, at the gym. She brings them home for dinner or for a shower between wilderness trips, or in a group of rangers for pizza and party, or to floor surf in sleeping bags somewhere along the journey. And she brings them home to meet me – the sixty-eight-year-old roommate – also her mother.

I’ve heard of those parents – those dads and moms – who have “the talk,” with young men arriving for a first date with their daughters. There is no need for me to be intrusive or meddlesome. I trust her as my roommate. And I have confidence in the wisdom of a 34-year-old daughter. I know her to have a heart motivated by love and a brain guided by wisdom.

But we live in a music house – always have whether with other roommates or as family. She has played in bands and lived with bands. I have played with bands and raised young musicians. Music and musical instruments are fabric and fiber of our lives and figure prominently in design and function of our living arrangements.

There were the two thirty-year-olds she hosted spontaneously after WFR training who were delighted to catch me playing guitar and turned out to be musicians. We enjoyed a fine jam session. There was the handsome and desirable lawyer who stopped by on an errand, saw the two pianos and promptly confessed his lack of musical investment. One item and one alone in the negative column, but huge in a music house. There are the two guys from the gym who haul in their guitars for regular band practice. There is a handful of best friends collected from church and gym who show up on days off and work on original tunes in the garage. She lives here musically. I go away from the house to work as a music administrator four days a week and on Saturday and Sunday mornings I gig as a pianist.

Last week she met someone new online. They corresponded via text. They chatted face to face by phone, mutually liked what they saw, made a hiking and dinner date. Between the hike and meal they showed up at the apartment to freshen up and change clothes. His attention was immediately captured by the musical instruments. I welcomed him to pick up and play anything he liked while she changed. He chose the acoustic guitar. It was a nice, knowledgeable riff. I moved to the keyboard, correctly guessed the key and supported his ramblings. She came from the other room, pulled up the cajon, seated herself and laid the rhythm. He began to sing. His was a pleasant voice. It was an original song. Well now, that’s a huge checkmark in the plus column.

You can text. You can talk. You can exchange bios and opinions online. You can take a hike to support your claims of affection for Nature and your wilderness prowess. You can boast about being a music lover. But beware when you visit a music house and Mom hands you a guitar. The truth about your musical background will surface immediately.