10:28am. Muffled through the ceiling, my upstairs neighbor is laughing and suddenly I’m aware of how few times I’ve used the word uproariously. Scrolling through profiles on my phone, I see a photo of a woman standing in front of bales of hay and I’m reminded of summer concerts on the farm in the fading light of Friday night and also that time I took my best girl to a different farm with acres and acres of sunflowers and an apple orchard on a hill. I was more thoughtful then. I planned outings. I was eager to please. A different photo, different woman – skiing… and I want to be in front of dramatic and craggy peaks maybe near an alpine lake. After reading a poem about a honeymoon in Paris taken twenty years after the wedding, I want to see the Eiffel Tower. I want the late night glow of streetlamps. I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. At the very least, I should probably get out and do something: go to the park or the beach or a museum. Today seems like a good day to fall in love with someone or something – which is difficult to do from this corner of the couch where the books are stacked crookedly on the side table and the last sips of coffee have gone cold. It’s July and the cool weather has once again tricked my sensibilities into thinking the seasons are about to change.
11:02am The song “Sky Pilot” crosses my mind. I’m thinking about a writing as a way to put plausible deniability and distance between myself and the events of my life. If I share a story here, any reader might reasonably think it’s true, but if I share it as a poem, I can create some doubt. At 11:11 I make my wish. At 11:12, I re-stack the books, check the phone, decide I should get a move on or at the very least a shower. The poem, the dance with a slightly more fictitious me can wait.