Granite Street Jazz
One of my recent little joys is sitting in my living room with quiet jazz on the tv and watching out the windows that overlook the street.
I live on a busy main road in a small city. I don’t quite know how I feel about it. There are times I love a city and times that I crave more nature. The time I hate this street is when I hear trucks barreling down the road the exact instant I’m about to drift off to sleep. As if they know the exact right time to jolt me back awake.
The time I love this street is exactly the moment that I’m writing in right now. There’s something about jazz that makes everything romantic. There’s a sort of paradox about the quiet, uninterrupted coziness of my living room and the busy, rushed life happening outside. Something that makes it seem all so trivial.
The concept of cars is funny to me. Like we’re all in our own little insulated bubbles. Separate but somehow together.
There are cars with little families going to the grocery store and ambulances going to save lives and a never-ending stream of Amazon trucks filled with junk to be delivered. I think about all of the little (and probably big) worries that everyone has as they’re driving along. The appointments they’re rushing to. The deadlines they’re reviewing in their heads. The little annoyances that are filling their days.
It all seems so silly from this point of view. And yet, the next time I step out of my apartment, I’ll be joining them in my own little insulated bubble, too. Worrying about the email that I forgot to send or the number of steps I still have to accomplish or whatever other bullshit is distracting me on any given Thursday.
Maybe the point is just to have these little moments of zooming out. To see the big picture once in a while. To see that it’s not so serious and rushed and urgent. To see that we’re not all so different. And then to forget it all and re-join the bustle because that’s just the way that the world works.
Whatever the reason, I urge you to listen to more jazz.