To Bare

It’s one week after my birthday, and I am sitting in the leather reading chair, socked feet upon the ottoman. My legs, under a knit blanket, keep warm. Poet Warrior lays open-spined, face down on my stomach as I close my eyes and let my head rest against…

Max Richter enters, and the sound waves of Infra 5 move, in particular, me. Inside my chest, a rising, but it is not my breath nor my beating. The first violin repeating, softly; the cello, a layered dimension, adds depth; the second violin, lighter, pushes the melody faster; the white noise outro, a tart cherry on top.

I imagine my sister-in-law listening to this as she walks the streets of New York City, a decade back into time. I imagine my grandmother strolling, wrist up with the pocketbook in the crook of her elbow, in 1940s Toronto, nearly a century back into place. I know all the walking I have done, the soundtracks I have listened to, the backpacks I have thrown on my shoulders. And still, I have not arrived.

“A wanderer learns through standing still,” Joy Harjo reminds me, and I think, instead, that I have reached the center of myself, of knowing what I contain; as a true water bearer does.

This feeling feels because it is accompanied by sound, two harmonious vibes sharing a moment in which I am bare, bearing witness. It is beautiful, this luxury, this romance, this poetry. When the world hugs me like this, I weep.

It occurs to me that no one is witnessing this moment, that no one has ever really seen this beloved unfolding of the every day that is my life; the intimacy of 9 p.m. on a Thursday night. My essence in the ordinary.

If I didn’t tell you, just now, would you know?