sITTIN’ WITH A SONG

smoke

“It goes fast.”

If you’ve born a child, you’ve heard it.

If you’ve reared a child, you’ve said it.

And of course, it’s true. It’s like we don’t know how else to process the fact, so we say it again. And again. And sigh, perhaps, while looking out upon the horizon, cradling a sweaty drink. Someday, we’ll find the edge of that horizon and fall right over the edge.

But we won’t vanish completely. We’ll leave traces and vapors and versions of ourselves behind. In children, in art, in shoddy repairs around our old house.

I will leave songs and little doodles and a daughter. These, of course, will someday be gone too. But they will leave traces and vapors, and so on, while the butterfly beats its wings. 

Maybe in two-thousand years, someone will excavate my back yard and find my old dog’s bones. They’ll be forced to stop, send in experts. They’ll find my fire pit and carbon date the ashes. They’ll find a Jim Abbot baseball card, half burnt and somehow preserved in the cardboard wax. They’ll find the remnants of a box of protein bars. Fascinating.

Maybe they’ll find and decipher my old report cards, an Awana Clubs workbook and threads covered in the melted plastic numbers of my high school football jersey.

I sat drunk, during the pandemic of 2020, and fed a fire with my mother’s carefully preserved memories of my childhood. It freed up one plastic tub’s worth of space in my basement. I still remember how her face looked when I told her I’d done it.

I heard my grandmother’s voice in my mom’s voice the other day. I remembered standing behind the big tree in grandma and grandpa’s yard, smoking candy cigarettes. I couldn’t be seen or caught. I’d bought them at the Casey’s store four blocks away.

I stole all the change from the ash tray in my mother’s van, once. I planned to visit Casey’s, purchase candy and destroy the evidence. I carried that change around in my pocket all day. It sat heavy. I returned the change before mom could notice it missing.

My daughter is two. I wonder at the traces and vapors she’ll wisp into the ether as she navigates her own life. These will be my epilogues. She will burn fires, and I will be the smoke.

I just hope these fires are not the lit end of a cigarette. Grandma would hate that.

And so on. And so on.

How beautiful.

WANT a free SIGNED album?

“Smoke” appears on our 2023 EP, Fort Smith. I’d love to sign a copy and send it to ya for free. We’re just asking you to cover the shipping and handling. Claim yours here: joestammband.com/freecd

This has been Sittin’ With A Song.

Thanks for sittin’ with me.

Peace, love and old dogs,
Joe