thoughts put to screen.

the ceiling fan whirs and spins and shakes the pull that clanks insistently against the glass lightbulb cover. millie sighs into sleep at my feet. jonny shifts in his chair as he checks email and plays with his new computer....i hear the hushed tinkling of a piano as barry manilow sings, "...and when october goes, the same old dream appears, and you are in my arms to share the happy years...i turn my head away to hide the helpless tears...oh i hate to see october go." music has a way of invoking a memory, a time, a place. of course.

and this album, this sultry, jazzy, smoke-filled room of an album that barely pauses between songs puts me right back into the hot tub on the back porch of our house on oak road. that hot tub...a fortieth birthday surprise for my mother. i can see us, the four of us, sitting in that hot tub with the snow surrounding us...daniel the cat and his brother silver jumping up to peek into the water. my parents talking about their days while i soak up every word and my little brother plays with something, a matchbox car perhaps...or a he-man character...

i know every word to each one of these sad, heartwrenching, foreshadowing songs. my ten-year-old self knew the words to every one of these songs. not understanding that people really did leave one another. not knowing the pain that could exist alongside love. not knowing the pain that was to come. but these songs knew. these songs knew that love could end.

when i opened up a new blog post tonight, i planned on writing a "senses post" about this moment. about how my hands smell like brass because i have been playing with wire and creating. about how the water tastes and feels as it falls down my throat. about the beauty in the midst of the nest that is our home. about the softness of the my new linen bloomers against my skin. i planned to share the senses of this moment.

but then this music began and my thoughts turned to more than twenty years ago. twenty years. to a time when my heart didn't know much other than love and hope...in that house, the music would flow throughout...into almost every room...and sometimes my parents would put this album on and i would be alone in the living room and i would begin to dance with an imaginery partner and pretend i was in the midst of a "baryshnikov on broadway" sort of scene and i would pretend i had my own partner to love. i would dance and sway and live inside the hope of my own love...i would dance inside my own future.

here i am.
i am that future.

and i reach for my partner's hand and dance in this place, in this time, to this music. as i am living inside the hope that is my life.