Sunday Improvisations

Pretty soon here, I'll be on a plane heading back to Chicago. In the meantime am sitting at The Bridge PAI, listening to some of hour 3 of a 12 hour improvising marathon. It's just me and the three musicians in the room. Bass and computer language push to every corner of the room. Layers of tone fill the space, in cahoots with the sun flooding through the window behind me, warming my back. Quieter murmers break through now and then, seemingly bubbling up from deep water.

It's a maybe perfect way to wrap the past three days in Charlottesville, dense and curious and full of listening, talking talking talking, hiking, bourbon, coffee.

Overheard: Teenager in the hotel elevator, responding to mom's entreaty too loudly over the tinny smash of bad rock and roll bleeding out of his earbuds. Mom: "smile?" Teenager: "WHY."

Overheard: Sex, in the room next door. Or two doors down.

Overheard: The wail of a mother, looking frantically for the toddler she'd lost in a crowd.

Heard: Jingling of dog collars (Harriet and Luna's), between pockets of conversation, as we climbed up to the lookout on Turk Mountain.
Heard: The loudest water drips, inside a secret train tunnel full of stalagmites.
Heard: Cat Power in the background, sealing the deal on the most charmed day ever.

[Can feel the drones now. Vibrating back against warm window. Slightly louder than before.]