I was sitting at home at my desk the day of this photo, working online for Planet Waves. Or, rather, I was trying to work and not succeeding very well. I had just gotten off the phone with my aunt who was dying. She was going through her final stages of cancer, close to the time my father was doing the same one year ago. I had visited her in February; this phone call on a sunny day in May was our goodbye, and we both knew it. I had made a point to tell her that I loved her and would miss her; she said the same to me.
I got off the phone and found myself a bit lost at sea, emotionally. I stared at the computer screen wondering how to focus enough to get even a little work done, but I realized this sea was more of a swamp: a bit murky in its vagueness; not quite the sharp point of loss, but rather its soft, current-less anticipation; one foot sinking deeper in as I tried to pull out the other. It occurred to me I also wasn’t trying very hard and wasn’t terribly interested in doing so. I wanted to feel justified in just sitting there, feeling, without a thought to any “processing.”
Suddenly I noticed my computer telling me my internet connection was lost, which made no sense till I picked up on the lack of music from the radio and then the beeping of my landline: the power had gone out.