This is so far from my usual listening fare, even given the amount of easy-going trip-hop, chillhop and lofi that’s been wafting about my place in recent months. It’s more akin to what you’d hear in a high end hotel with a small combo playing off in the corner in lieu of music piped in. Yet it’s perfect for this morning and its hard to say why. It just is. Just like in the hotel lobby, it doesn’t require direct engagement. It’s for the ambience and nothing more. Yes miss, we’ll take another round of those and maybe a food menu when you get a moment… and then you settle a bit deeper into the chair for a spell.

Maybe it’s just all about feeding into that desire to be in a less familiar place, having been limited in movement for months. There’s always been a pull of airport bars and hotel lobbies and people in motion… those liminal spaces in life. You are here now. It’s not your final destination. You won’t be here tomorrow. Hell, life itself is a liminal space if you really think about it, but this doesn’t require that depth. There’s something about the peace and solitude of the place between here and there.

The world is in a liminal space here now before the election, in the middle of an ongoing pandemic or health crisis or whatever you want to call it. Nobody quite knows what it’s going to look like on the other side. New York is somewhere between purgatory, suspended animation and a departure lounge. I’ll lean towards the latter on that list. We are going somewhere and isn’t likely to be exactly how any of us envision it or wish it to be, but we’re going anyway. For those of us who’ve mucked about in the depths before and have some experience, there is less trepidation. We’re just waiting to see how it all shakes out and we’ll act accordingly. We’re rolling with it and it’s okay, finishing off drinks and waiting for our aisle to be called up. We are the seasoned travelers. We can get by with a small carry-on and a whatever attitude. It’s all good.

Never ready for the weekend to end though, even if there is nothing better to do. It’s over anyway. It’s Monday morning and there are things to do.

Selah.