Work is a workweek work is a blind slide that startsonmondaystopsonfriday if i'm lucky, life is a workweek, life is life, life is a big fast car flying down a one lane blacktop, flying, swooshing, sighing by like a thing you did but don't clearly recall, like a memory you haven't had yet, just yet, life is the car, destiny is the road, work is the engine, money is the fuel
At night not every night, some evening, not every evening there is a thing, a pause, a RECALIBRATION a stutter, a skip in time, a break a THEFT...
The email is abandoned, the duty lost, the phone as if ripped from the socket on the wall in a horror film, the life, the way, the assumed thing is torn from existence
A nylon bag, black, obscure, ignored in the corner of the day.
A box, vinyl clad, dusty, harsh in its promise.
The box plugged in, the bag unzipped, a stand, an instrument, a guitar!
Plugged in, placed in the stand, stand, the last. Stand.
And then:
Music, possibly. Tentative, shy, people are leaving the building, I pick up, I hold, I pick, the pick...
Open the book, flip pages back, forward, deliberating, act of choosing and then...music, really.
The hand searches, the hand strums, with pick or sans pick. A familiar scale, an intimate riff, the warm up, the approach. And then a little voice. Shy, tentative, air crawling gently over chords, vocals, voice ashamed of itself, voice and then voice with guitar. Song. Songs! Familiar songs from the place, the home, the nest, the book. Singing more rightfully now with the guitar, a song, another song, another and another and now let's play the harmonica too. Simple and there.
Music filling up, life making way, music coming in, music occurring. It's Tuesday, let's work it, it's Wednesday, let's practice it, it's 10pm, we can stop now. It's ok, we can stop, its midnight, we can pause. I can stop today, even though its not today anymore.
Pack it up now. Carefully, each harmonica in it's little case, the rack folded and stowed, the picks and capo in the little knit bag, the tuner and the bag and the rack and the encased harmonicas in the zipper bag on the outside of the case, the guitar in the case, the cable in the other zipper bag, the amp turned off, the guitar in the bag in the office, the light's turned off, the door closed, the brain turned off, the subway ride home, alone, reading to distract, distract productively, without my guitar and without my amp, they are parked and undeployed in my office, ready for any thing, ready for tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Thursday.
I'll be at:
The Lounge at Dixon Place
With Randy Hudson joining me on guitar.
161 Chrystie Street
7pm until 10, more or less
Three more Thursdays - 2/4, 2/11, 2/25
No hat, but I may pass the cover
