We Woke Up and Started Talking

Light Between the Trees / 2022 / photo by Russell C. Smith

We woke up and started talking about the Hindenburg, and morning shadows on the bedroom wall, and how spring’s arriving early. We talked about Jennifer Coolidge’s voice and her multi-layered expressions. We talked about how early morning connecting feels essential to living through this current history-in-the-making moment. Mutually deciding how many of the overwhelming moments we’re experiencing relates to the over the top and sliding down the avalanche mess the world’s in. Making coffee or tea, and sometimes salt water with lemon juice. Cooking eggs mid-morning, with mushrooms if one of us added them to the shopping list. Thinking about daily rituals, and last week remembering a song from way back when, and how we both knew the same song by Kate & Anna McGarrigle – while living in different cities and different countries. And naturally, it was heard by younger versions of ourselves. Talking about how it would’ve been to meet each other then and there, in the city where we overlapped for a period of time. Instead of several years ago. Funny how time travel often makes its way into our conversations, thanks to me. Bringing up a song we haven’t thought about in years. The heartbreaking vocal delivery feels just right for this precise historical moment. Sometimes, morning bird songs help to make sense of the world. For a few seconds anyway.