Yes or No, 1965

I have just gotten home from work and I do not feel like sleeping

And I do not feel like thinking and I do not feel like cleaning and I do not feel like being around others and I see the mess on the floor and for some reason I am reminded of my sisters and how they are also like my brothers, rambling and ranting with dirt on their knees and eyebrows and laughing and yelling wildly. I miss them all my days even though I know we are close even when we are far away. Serena in New York and Marlowe in LA. Me in my apartment in Humboldt Park, home from work, not sleeping, not thinking, not cleaning, not being around others because I live alone and I love to live alone. Although, I used to live with my sisters, and I feel like I do still.

I think about the 3 of us holding hands across thousands of miles. I think about my friend who lives closeby who I seldom see anymore. I think about you walking out the door. I think about the song that is playing, and the first time I heard it, and I want to tell you what that was like. Here:

It is snowing. It is a Wednesday. I have never been here before. I step inside, and the quartet is already deep in a standard I do not recognize. Drums, bass, sax, piano. Walking and talking together. Drums tripping over shoelaces untied but never falling like a dance no one knows how to move to but the one in those shoes. Mesmerizing. Bass with its spine upright sturdy and curious gazing up and down and sometimes behind. Sax with broad shoulders in its winter coat talking fast making sarcastic jokes and sometimes sighing and asking you to please keep up. Piano, blinking fast, breathing sharp breaths. Piano inhales and suddenly runs up the block, and pauses, waves, says “Hey, lookie here at what I found!” Waits panting for the others to catch up. The others reach the end of the block. They pick it up and hold it to the sun. And we clap.

I still do not feel like sleeping, but now I imagine that snowy Wednesday and Wayne Shorter and I feel like doing a bit of thinking and maybe even a bit of cleaning and maybe I while I pick up that pile of clothes I will call my sisters and ask them how they are doing.