Old Chairs

Yes, I'm procrastinating.

Wilco does so many fabulous songs fabulously (you can quote me on that). "Reservations"- the lyrics are brilliant, but I am partial to the instruments at the end. As with many songs on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it's sounds like sonic randomness at first. But as you close your eyes and hone in, you can hear movement and emotion and visions.

Two empty rocking chairs, wooden, moving slightly in the wind. Sometimes the chairs belong to an old couple, empty because they are inside making a basil and homegrown tomato salad together, enjoying what they grew in the backyard garden. Sometimes, they have passed away and that low, muffled voice filtering through the creaks and moans is the ghost of the husband, telling his wife about that piano he wanted to buy for her wedding gift- a shiny, mahogany standup. No doubt the porch is weathered grey with time and rain, family gatherings and slamming doors. It looks out onto something vast and dry, Texan in the FarWest way- miles and miles for your mind to run down, nobody coming but that old Chevy delivering mail. Quiet.

Sometimes the chairs belong to a young couple, inherited from her grandmother. The deck is newly waterproofed and screened to keep the bugs at bay. They are inside now, discussing the color of yellow they should pick for the nursery, looking for the keys to the car, a trip to the local hardware store. Those chairs will stand guard for them... will cuddle that little girl coming in the spring, lull her to sleep when she has a nightmare, tilt dangerously as she tests her balance, rock wildly as she remembers her first kiss. And they will be there when this couple becomes old, whispering secrets of the past.

*creeaak* *chills* *creeeaaak* *chills*
Again, again, again, I have to hear it again...