02.23.2003 1:00 am
blue piano

And then sometimes there's rediscovered Annie Leibovitz postcards from the MoMa, and great jazz songs, and late hours without pressing matters, and a fan in the window blowing in the cool night air.

Join me here, if only for a moment. The music is loud enough to drown out all the noise from the hallway, or the children, or the partner, or the neighbors, or the job, or school. Maybe a saxaphone, doing slow scales and arpeggios. Walking bass -- the big cello that goes "thdummm, thdummm..." -- and snare drum played with a brush. I don't know about you, but my life, and my room, are a mess right now. Stuff everywhere, pressing in on me. But I can look at my poster of O'Keefe, and love the lines. Or Van Gogh's Irises, and lose myself in their colour and contrast. Wearing comfortable clothes is key. Low lighting is key. Damp air from a rainy night helps. Tired eyes, trying to focus but drifting enough that I miss all the junk that needs doing and the stuff that needs getting-to. There's just this music, my head falling completely to one side as blue piano chords envelop me, push me playfully from side to side like an invisible throb of children begging for my attention. Stay here with me for a while. Close your eyes, and enjoy the feeling of a mind wiped clean, like a windshield cleansed of a winter's worth of salt scum. Suddenly, instead of seeing list of things you have to do, and visions of punishments inflicted if you fail, you can see simply to the back of your eyelids. No further. You need look no further. Have you ever wondered what it's like to be the person who makes sure that expiration dates are stamped on soda bottles and medicines? To live a life tied inexorably to the future. I imagine it'd be like, when you realize you haven't taken a deep breath, and then you take one, and you feel free? Except they never take that breath. They're always in the future, always waiting, always expectant. So take a breath. Feel it fill your chest, deep enough into your stomach to make you yawn. Let it pour out like water. Become aware of your limbs, of blood washing through them, bringing oxygen which makes everything possible. Drink some water if you need to. Sleep, if you need to. Are you suddenly better connected to your brain? If you are, then I dare you. I dare you to...

[Nora Jones - Come Away With Me]

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