Summer Music

Longing for the summer on these cold winter days. Warm, moist air stagnant in the sun. Shorts, a tee, sandals. Music all around – kicking through cracks in car windows, blasting out of bars, jamming on a street corner....

Her head nodded and her body shook, rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes. Our eyes met and we didn't say much until later over a late night, illogical cup of coffee. She laughed and I thought I'd hardly notice the humidity that July.

Unscheduled days, waking up and playing it by ear, barefoot on grass eating brie on bread, drinking red wine in the heat. Walking miles around the city, hydrating, stopping into record stores. Sometimes she bought and sometimes she stole.

But

we knew from the start 
that things fall apart,

intentions don't exist when people are unattached, possessionless, roaming a city in the summer without regard to wherever, whoever's next.

She never cared about labels and neither did I. I used to speculate about her whereabouts – San Francisco, Rotterdam, Perth – I knew I'd never know....

Breathing in that cold, dry air on a frigid neighborhood walk. Winterized houses, sealed shut, don't allow sound to escape.

(Click here for a song not quoted in the above story.)