Yesterday, parked on Willamette Street in front of the downtown post office, I waited for my son. He’d gone into the used bookstore to look for a hiking guide.
Music brought me awake in the moment. Singing. With his back to me, on the other side of newspaper dispensers, a man strummed a guitar and sang with a voice even I could tell had quality.
I’m from Oregon…
I got sunshine on my mind…
Does it rain,
oh, Lord, does it rain…
His lyrics went on about staying in all winter with his woman.
We got ten kids…
I smiled. The building across the street bore a word near the corner, in bold cursive. Unconventional. No, that wasn’t it. Unfettered. No. I failed to jot down what it told me.
This morning, on my treadmill, the room swelled with my favorites. Chicago from old days. A man belting tunes about his woman.
Only the beginning…
of what I want to feel forever.
They could play those horns.
I have to listen to my music at full volume while I jog. Headphones would be a travesty. I work inside my brain from 4:00 a.m. I’ve got to get outta there while I move and sweat and stretch my arms. I do keep the door closed.
When I explained to Tim one Saturday about the music and how I must get outside my head in order to unwind, he replied, in his musical, loverlike way,
“Yes, you appear to be out of your mind.”