‘Jimmy Dunne Says’

‘Where Beauty Lives’

The Palisadian-Post presents an homage to Will Rogers’ column, “Will Rogers Says,” with a column by Palisadian Jimmy Dunne—on life in the “greatest town in America.”

All of our lives are filled with “markers”: moments we celebrate that define our journeys.

Our birthdays. Baptisms or other religious events. Graduations. Weddings. Holidays. Lots of ’em.

I’m pulled back to my daughter Kaitlyn’s eighth-grade graduation in town—where she was giving a speech to her classmates.

She talked about how something she learned in one of her classes stuck with her. How a lover of music, Pythagoras, said the beauty of music isn’t in the “notes.” It’s in the space between the notes.

How without the “rest,” it’s just a bunch of notes. It’s not music.

It’s in the pause. That’s where the heart lives.

Two weeks ago, my daughter gave birth to a baby boy. A beautiful, healthy baby boy.

I can’t possibly express in words the feeling of my wife and I walking into that hospital room and seeing our child, our little girl, with her baby on her chest.

Seeing the way she was looking at her baby.

Our daughter told us about a moment that happened a few hours earlier.

Kaitlyn and her husband Jimmy were in their hospital room alone. The contractions were starting to come regularly.

Jimmy was holding Kaitlyn’s hand. She looked up at her husband.

In that moment, in the quiet of that moment, they looked into each other’s eyes.

They realized they were just about at a door that would forever reimagine their journeys. A door they couldn’t wait to open, yet with no way of knowing what they would see and feel.

They broke down in each other’s arms.

And without any words, they knew they were ready to go, to forever be there to hold each other’s hands.

A moment of promise. Of wonder.

Of what love means.

With this new year, may you find those moments, those moments between the notes—with those you love and treasure the most.

Jimmy Dunne is a modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter (28 million hit records), screenwriter/producer of hit television series, award-winning author, an entrepreneur—and a Palisadian “Citizen of the Year.” You can reach him at j@jimmydunne.com or jimmydunne.substack.com.