Night Passage

     The plan was to travel to Cloud this weekend. We set out driving on Friday night, after work. However late we leave, however late we arrive, our short passage of time there will commence with sweet sleep, and we will awaken there, in that wide and deep space.
     But last weekend, the boats came out onto the hard. And the women planned a halloween party for this weekend, and so we had to stay. It's been our community, after all, through langorous, hot evenings, after cooling afternoons on the lake. It's the most natural of connections we share with these folks, nothing uniting us but the water, the boats, and yet, we come there with all the everything we are, and with no pretense, as none of it is the reason we are there. And so we laugh, and eat, and repair our boats, and go to and from out lives, and we know one another as witnesses from the fringe, where there's no question but to be ourselves.
     And so some of the guys decided to play, and I - not wanting to go at all at first, so hungering for Cloud - bought my sax along, and there were KB, and Chris, and Vaughn on the bass this time. Phil came with drums, and with a friend, Neil, and it all flowed kinda nice and unexpected, surprising us as music always does, at how good and pure it is, how easily emotion becomes sound, that sweeps out into the heart and the feet of our listeners, then comes back at us, not just us anymore, but more.
     Ponczka and I pulled away early, both of us full of the wine and the easy flirting, and the summer music even though it's deep into fall. It's a good night for driving, even though we overstayed the party, and won't get there til five or six at the earliest. It's still the plan, for awhile, until something settles inside. No need to rush. This is home too. The still though noisy night will embrace us here as on the open highway. No need for the speed.
     I pack the last things anyway. Ponczka makes her way up the stairs, leaving me with my fifteen minutes. Minutes here, comtemplating it all, this night passage, whether moving or not, wherever we find ourselves, inside whatever melody, or Halloween pretense, or restaurant along the highway. Sweet night passage. Sweet, sweet life.