I lay up in the loft and tried to sleep but gave up on avoiding listening to the boys downstairs playing euchre and talking about the cities where they each planned to move and just opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling and opened my ears to learn what I could from the words and maybe end up falling asleep to them like a bedtime story and even if not oh well this too shall pass I told myself and a good opportunity to practice letting go of my desire to try to go to bed even though I had nothing to do in the morning and instead meditating on the present listening to the words not only as vehicles of meaning driving from their mouths to my ears with some sort of useful fact in tow but also as interesting in the way that I read in a spiritual book about how when you glance quick at first and see a dog but it’s something before you say in your mind oh that’s a dog it’s the color and the shape which is really just color so it stays raw like it would be if you were seeing for the first time and not even knowing that you could walk up and feel its fur so I lay and listen and try to just hear the noise and furrow my brow and wonder ah what is sound what are these noises laughs exclamations interruptions oohs and ahhs glasses being set down on the table cards being shuffled altogether the art of the opposite of a silent movie a pictureless film the song of the four old friends playing cards in the living room at night.