Feel It Coming

At night, I open the windows in the living room and flick on the little fan on the stand next to the couch. What with having windows on both sides of the room, the wind flows freely through, and the slightly humid feel and pungent rain-like smell that accompanies the breeze that wraps around me before returning to the night drifts about, and I smile at the sensation of it all. The curtains gambol and undulate with the texture of the passing draft, and rarely (but not never), I move and dance along with it. My hair flips and waves as I close my eyes and grin with the feel of the gales maneuvering through the meadows and stirring in the thickets by my home. At the sight, some might call me strange, but I neither accept nor deny it. It's who I am, and what I do. Can that be helped? Ha, I think not.

Some days, when there's rest between morning and evening, I drive out to William Jewell College for a bit of self-help. Through the doors of Pillsbury Music Hall, down the stairs to the left, and into a secluded, dark corridor, there are bands of quiet rooms where sleeping instruments await their players, and they greet them wholly and humbly. I select a room where a slumbering piano is gently awakened by the gentle dance of my fingers across the ivory keys, a docile and humble, yey happy greeting to any musician's ears. I sit down, snap a few fingers to get them ready, and I begin the ballet of hands and fingers coursing through the chords. Subtle and soft are the higher notes, accompanied with the deep and proud thunder of the low notes, neither overpowering the other, unless in solo. I can close my eyes and let my fingers do the seeing, as I am confident enough to trust my ears and hands to guide me through the chords.

Other times, I drive out to the country and course through twisted roads and winding avenues lined with strapping cottonwoods and fragrant pines. Music ebbs from the speakers within the car, and I huff on a cigarette as I concentrate on the next curve, the next bend, the next adventure I'll face on the next day. Tomorrow. Next week. Next year.

Next breath.

Who's coming along for the journey?