BRIGHT LIGHT

The music and the poetry were the driving force in my spiritual walk, and they made decisions easier to make. I had been gifted with a rich sense of dreaming, and also from being brought up around music and musical instruments. My father, Leonard Zapf of Zapf's Music Store of Philadelphia, was a gifted musician and instrument technician. I had any instrument at hand at any time growing up with the music store. And although I studied classical piano, and violin, the guitar made the most sense to me, because of how easy it was to write a song. And I could put my heart and poetry into the guitar. This is when I wrote the song Bright Light.

_{QUITE SPOT}

I took a drive in my 1970 VW Beetle, down a country road called Creek Road in Bryn Athyn Pennsylvania. It was a very private road that was basically deserted and had an old train track running through that was no longer in use. It was one of the most peaceful and quiet spots. I could get out and do a little hiking and writing. It was one of those sun-filled moments when I knew I had to grab the day and breathe the fresh air. Sat down along the side of the train track and wrote this song. It was immediate. And the Bright light of life blessed me that day with an amazing sense of peace. I felt as though I did not have to try to figure it all out. Just find my heart, and keep trying to follow it come hell or high water.

I realized that I had no time to mourn after David's death. I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and make some hard decisions about my life. How I was going to love again? When I think about my whole seemingly tiny life growing up in the Suburbs of Philadelphia, dreaming of whom I would like to marry at kindergarten age, then making a plan, David didn't seem to notice me until I was much older, like age 15! And through all that the unexpected happened, at my ripe old age of 20.

_{NO LIVE PLAYBOOK}

Now I was thinking, "how will my life play out?" "Should I plan anything ever again?"  What was I going to do for work and for play and how would I keep myself balanced, after all, I had learned from my time traveling across the country, free and alive! All of a sudden I was learning about death, I did not want to learn about grief. I didn't want to grieve. Not at age 20!  I really felt that David flew off to some planet, or was it heaven? Or an idea of heaven? I had never really had any concept of what that would be like.

The thing is, that with David gone I was feeling as though I was going to start making excuses for why he wasn't here anymore. Why he just disappeared? I was afraid of thinking too much. And so I found my new direction in writing more poetry, and songs began to flow out of me. This would be my new route to healing. Because even though I could not find the answers to "why", I began to get interested in what was available to me in the deeper meanings of life, and so my Spiritual walk had begun.