on missing.

I should be practicing. I should be figuring out what the heck a B minor chord looks like on a ukulele. I should be memorizing the lyrics and the chords to Sweet Child of Mine, since I am collaborating on that–along with another song–for a Sleep No More post party at the end of the month. I should be finishing writing this dear little song that keeps running around in my head. I cannot figure out if it’s a rap or not. I should be figuring this out.

But, instead, I am writing.

Because I am feeling some things right now, and I thought I’d write them down. See if I can’t breathe a little bit easier because of it; the way it’s always been since I was a little girl and would write out my feelings until the feelings didn’t feel so big and overwhelming anymore.

I used to be able to see the moon from my window, growing up.

The moon and the treetops. I would stare at that patch of sky for so long some nights. I am missing the moon tonight. I am missing my piano. I am missing a person, too. Not anyone in particular, strangely enough; there is nobody to miss that way. He is gone. Every he that has ever been here is gone. Not that there have been many. But, for me, one has always been enough, anyway.

I think I will sneak down to the laundry room soon; play some music. Practice and write. Last night, my first attempt at this failed miserably when I ended up way too close to a guy with alcohol on his breath. He kept asking me questions and questions and questions. I think he was drunk; I know I was scared. I didn’t like it. So I left and went back into my apartment. And then I was annoyed because all I wanted to do was play music in peace and, instead, I ended up playing 20 questions with a man who does not practice the art of subtlety.

Tonight, I met a guy at this pre-meeting for a fashion designer charity event I am performing at next week. “Where do you like to go when you go out?” he asked me. And I realized something: I didn’t really have anything to say, other than open mics. And studios. And my laundry room. 

But I do go places all the time. I go explore the city. I jump on the subway and see where it will take me. I look for bookshops. Thrift stores. Patches of Central Park I have yet to see. I hear there’s a part with sailboats; I’d like to see that. I just don’t know where the coolest clubs are, I guess. I still feel ridiculous at bars. I never know what drink to order; the music is too loud to speak over; and unless I am playing, I wonder how long is an appropriate amount of time to spend there before I can leave.

But I do love this city. Just today, I was walking through Soho and the little shops all in a row thrilled me. So did the perfect cup of hot chocolate I quietly sipped in the corner of a cafe.

I just sometimes miss the moon.

And I really miss my piano.

And him. No, I don’t miss him. I just sometimes miss…somebody…I guess I don’t know him. And that’s okay. Most of the time, anyway, that’s perfectly okay with me. But then there are nights like this. When I start out missing the moon and all my 88 keys and then it goes to missing a person, too. All those things I am not seeing and feeling right now jump on the bandwagon together,  I guess, and what a bandwagon it is.

What a bandwagon it is.

But the part of life where I am singing a private little concert for some designers and publicists in a sun-lit room with the Hudson at my back?

That part is pretty sweet.

Makes the bandwagon look a little ridiculous, I guess, after all.