Okay... Today Feels Like Spring

Alisa Anton


You slept in late only to find that the temperature had spiked from fifty degrees to eighty overnight and you'd woken up tangled in your sheets, sweat slicked to your skin. The kind of day that's hazy like a bad dream or an old memory; when you look across the parking lot you can see beams of energy radiating off of hot pavement. Rolling over, you stare up at the ceiling. Is your stomach twisted out of hunger, or the leftover taste of green-apple flavored liquor from the night before? You close your eyes tightly and reopen them several times. Nope, not a bad dream after all. 

A SUNDAY KIND OF LOVE

It would be the perfect day for a walk or a trip to the beach. It's the perfect day to think about nothing. You put on Etta James and think it'd sound better on vinyl, but you left your record player (the powder blue one) on your dresser at home and besides, you don't own Etta James on vinyl anyway. You guess that the closest thing in your possession, would be the Mamas and the Papas, or the Beach Boys, but then you remember that you once met someone who said he didn't like the Beach Boys, and now you'd rather not listen to anything at all.

FOOL THAT I AM

With nothing better to do than to sit alone with your thoughts, you head to the closest record shop in search of the elusive Etta James. The perfect background noise. You'll dance around the house in your underwear with a slice of cold pizza in hand to avoid thinking about the people you used to share late nights and cold pizza with. But today feels like spring and it's hard not to smile in shorts and a tank top, even as you wipe a bead of sweat off your forehead after running to make it to the store before it closes. They don't sell any records by Etta James. They give you their business card and tell you to check again, anyways. 

Leaving empty handed, you take a long way home. You wonder what it was like to listen to rhythm and blues when it was just another genre, not a novelty that you only hear in coffee shops and perusing the racks at your local Goodwill store. Soul music feels as comfy as the men's flannel you bought for $6.00, old and familiar and borrowed but still all your own. You wish you knew how to see yourself in people the same way that you see yourself in the records, trinkets, and borrowed history you've accumulated over the years. You wish people weren't so afraid to bare their souls -- to sing out their love, pain, and heartbreak; to ache and long for honestly. Unapologetically. 

AT LAST!

Today feels like spring. Watch the days melt into nights and the seasons blend together. 

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