visions of johanna

My dearest, how are you this evening? I hope everything's well and you're well rested or about to go to sleep, in which case, sleep well. Putting my arms around you and just staying there in your embrace, feels so good. I'm a little better today, still fighting this cold along with an on-and-off mild headache. But I've been trying (without killing myself) to keep to my normal routine, and so today I did manage both a workout and a walk. I've caught up on the DVD routines to such an extent that now I play the 10-minute-each segments at double speed, which eliminates a lot of the "dead" time in which the perky instructor transitions between or explains the moves. I like doing the rigorous workout at this brisk pace, otherwise it's too drawn out and tedious.

I wonder about your daily life, what your work is like, what living there is like for you, the place where you're staying. I look forward to your telling me all about it, I really do.

Soft jazz is playing on the radio, purple tulips in a vase on my desk are opening wide, stems elongating. Dinner will be last night's leftovers, roast chicken, butternut squash sweetened with a bit of maple syrup, and steamed broccoli. The other day I posted about listening to Beethoven string quartets, inspired by a review I'd read of a chamber music performance at a hip club, and suggested (mostly in jest) that my favorite radio station could be a bit more musically diverse. Their response? - that is, perhaps it was a response? The following morning - granted, on a mostly instrumental program called Sunday Brunch - they played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata; this morning, Roll Over Beethoven.

OMG. Glancing at the playlist now - yesterday I referred to Patti Smith with the phrase "pistol packing." What did they play this afternoon? Willie Nelson's Pistol Packin' Mama.

Dearest, slide over in bed, I want to lie down next to you. Let's turn off the lights and let our eyes adjust to the darkness. There are no shades on the top halves of the windows and so while comfortably lying in bed we can look out into the night and stargaze. It's a cold, perfectly clear night, so all the constellations are visible, not that we're getting up out of bed to identify them. Rather, we're just glad to see the diamonds so far far away in every respect, time and space, twinkling down on us as we lie together very much alive at this very moment under the covers on this water planet earth and dry land too, and warm bedcovers and warm arms and your soft voice telling me all about yourself and me putting my arms around you and listening and sometimes laughing at a wry detail you've thrown in and sometimes I ask a follow up but mostly I just listen to you murmur and tell me all about your life, the outline of how you came to be who you came to be and how we finally found each other and we fall asleep finally under the canopy of starlit velvet night in each other's arms.

Good night, darling, sleep tight. Many kisses.