Lost Cities

This is the first song of my own I’ve shared in a few years, and it’s older than the last one I shared, another few years ago. 

I picked up a strange habit during a terrible year. 

When I’m walking, and I walk a lot, especially at night, especially if the streets are shiny with rain, the light from the cars dressed as metal beams jutting out to the open, billowing smoke yawning from covered doors so cigarettes stay dry, I place both my hands over my heart, breathe as slowly as I can, and repeat to myself “I am here”. 

I thought I stopped praying a long time ago, but the act found different forms. There is no escaping your own divinity, there is only ignoring. 

Last week, after a session that went late, and having stumbled upon news that wasn’t a surprise, but all the same still knocked me, I grounded myself with this ritual. 

A muscular man heading towards me, carrying a construction bucket, stopped and put it down. He placed both hands over his heart, in the same pattern I had on my chest. I thought he was mocking me, and I became nervous. But he didn’t speak. Instead, he gave me a look for a few seconds that seemed to say “I know, me too, I know”. Then he bent over, picked up his bucket, and continued past me. 

I walked the next two subway stations to process. A universal kindness was remembered in me, that had escaped my vision, that had begun atrophying into despondence. 

“Lost Cities”, in more words and notes, tries to say what this strangers eyes did: 

“I know, me too, I know”.