Too Late

Late night in my living room. I spent the day tending to my house, which was sorely in need of some love. Grey skies kept me inside, or at least close to home.

It's a summer of love and good, good work. The first summer in years that I've been able to stay in town. This evening, I found out that my job has been extended by one week. I couldn't be happier.

I like to eat early, so I don't go on stage feeling too full. Then I bike home and by the time I get there I'm ravenous. Many nights I've devoured late-night snacks (my go-to is chicken fingers, for some reason). There's a place close to my house that stays open strangely late, even on Mondays. I spent a couple of hours in there last week with a friend who was walking by. Two night-owl musicians catching up over beers and Irish whiskey.

I am in love with my night work. With lazy mornings and and taking bows and singing my heart out. With bike commutes and two-show days and waiting for the next heat wave.

I think about summers where I was working up north, ready to crumple the paper of my life's plan at the slightest hint of a better option. I was a drama queen, a troublemaker. I fell in mad love several times a week. I was careless.

My life is less fraught now, but new options still raise their heads. The difference is that I don't fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat. Love is here to stay, and the choices I have to make are work-related. Play it safe / Follow your dreams. Beautiful decisions. I may be poised on a cliff, but the ground beneath my feet is rock solid.

This song creeps up on me, like all the best ones do. One day it's just another track on an album I like, and the next day it's wrapping its tentacles around my heart. Soundtrack to the drama that still plays out, if only in my head. Missed connections and late nights and feeling strangely aware of that person sitting just to your right.  Looking up and someone's eyes lock onto yours and your breath catches, just a bit. It's not for nothing that my favourite movie is Lost In Translation. I am a huge fan of the breathless crush, the unresolved but staggeringly strong attraction.

The drama is not mine anymore. I swam out of the rapids and now I get to float in the warm shallows. This song is where I go to remember how it feels to be madly in love and crushingly sad, all at the same time.

It wasn't all bad.