I don't know how to do this.

Or, maybe I do...

Maybe it's that I don't want to.

I'm driving to the store to get a couple things. For real; just a couple things. It's not that late but it's getting darker earlier and earlier now. When did that happen?

Headlights blare from around the bend so I cut my brights. I'm tired. More than that, I'm sad. And I really don't want to think. Maybe it's actually that I don't want to make decisions. Soooo, music.

Anything.

I don't always use the DJ feature on Spotify because it seems to cycle through a lot of the same stuff. Maybe I just haven't trained it well enough, yet. But I go through phases of using it and I'm in one right now.

"Here's one that might not be on your radar, but I think you'll dig it."

Ok, whoever wrote the training copy for this thing really over-indexed on the kitschy radio personality. I mean, especially because it then proceeds to play "Sail Away" by David Gray.

Uh—

Pssssshhhhht.

My guy... ummm, might not be on my radar?? I'll have you know David Gray's album White Ladder from the late 90s was one of the few CDs that perpetually lived in my mom's car. So, while I might be winding my way through the dark backroads of Vermont right now, in my head I'm riding shotgun while mom's driving. Outside is brightly-lit and all kinds of blue. This is coastal Maine in the summer, after all.

Maybe I'm not pulling into Shaw's... maybe, instead, we're trying to find parking along Sand Beach in Acadia. And if we skip "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" then it's just "Please Forgive Me" until we're back to "Babylon." Maybe the trails on the right will still be closed for the birds' migration and the white-capped waves will splash across the pink and purple rock slabs on the left. I can smell the salt. I can even hear Thunder Hole whumpfff like an avalanche and a storm all rolled into one.

But it's dark and I'm sitting in a Shaw's parking lot, idling.

With a sigh, I remind myself that I only came to grab a couple things. I reach for the ignition and my hand just sort of... stays there, floating instead.

Ok—deal.

I'll go back to being a person after the song's over.

* * *

Do you bargain with yourself to keep your feet moving?

Just me??

onward.

For more on this daily column, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.