All Around You

This early morning - with very little sleep in the preceding sixteen hours under my belt or over my pillow - I commenced to play music for three hours on the radio, from 3 to 6 am.  I had napped some on Saturday afternoon, but had basically been up "all day" by the time I started sticking CDs into the players at the station.  I don't recall a single thing I said on air or to callers, but that's probably just a matter of self-defense.

Meanwhile, about nine hundred miles away, the love of my life was waiting to board a plane & return to me.  She, too, was tired, having been in the Dallas/Fort Worth area on business.  The night before, she told me, she hadn't slept.  As her flight kept getting delayed - because of bad weather - we texted back & forth, until it seemed like I'd be picking her just moments before I was to go on the air at 3am.  But though she & her fellow passengers had boarded the plane, there was a malfunction with one of the aircraft's door's, & they deplaned, no more flights available till morning.

Lexington was a little chilly when I emerged from the radio station & drove home.  My dogs, as always, acted as though I'd been gone so long they barely remembered me; my cats barely remembered me.

The last song I played - wait - before I talk about this, let me say, yes, my wife made it home safely, I picked her up from the airport just before 6pm, & she came home, & I made her dinner, & we walked the dogs, & we watched Preacher & the new Match Game & I was very happy she was home.

What I wanted to mention is that the last song I played this morning - or maybe the next-to-the-last song I played - was "Favour" by the Wake.  It begins with the lines, "If you have a moment, all around you..."

At some point during the day I became haunted by the repetition of the words "all around you."  Many of the lyrics are, to me, unintelligible, made difficult to understand by the music, but when I hear the song start, in my head, I hear, "all around you."

Then I look around.

& then I wonder: how long will I be able to look around, & see the same thing?