We came in to an excerpt from "Ain't Nothin' 'Bout You" by Brooks & Dunn: Once I thought that love was something I could never do Never knew that I could feel this much But this yearning in the deep part of my heart for you Is more than a reaction to your touch It's a perfect passion and I can't get enough The way you look, the way you laugh, The way you love with all you have, There ain't nothing 'bout you that don't do something for me The way you kiss, the way you cry, The way you move when you walk by There ain't nothing 'bout you (there ain't nothing bout you) That don't do something for me

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When someone loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse only smiled.

“Someone made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

During the signing of the register, we listened to: the full version of "Ain't Nothin' 'Bout You" by Brooks & Dunn, followed by "Teach Me To Be Bad" by Thea Gilmore, and finally "Red Light Spells Danger" by Billy Ocean.

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Finally, we had Cher play us out with "Favorite Scars": High-wire Don't look down, because below you is a raging fire But love is waiting for you on the other side We're not easy on ourselves So take your heart back off the shelf Love covers you up in a landslide Love pulls you under like a riptide Love's when you crash trying to hang glide Love's when you run and then there's no light Love is a sword when you've got no defense Love is the rock we throw ourselves against Love is the healing of a broken heart The story behind all of my favorite scars