Ruminations of a Working Man: Confluence

The shadows sleep restlessly in the corners of my little office, content and hardly making a sound. At the end of each day, they burst forth and run wild in my absence. Sometimes, while I am still sitting near them, they snigger at my stupidity, and sometimes they whisper nasty things. Sometimes it’s not until much later that I realize they were doing so, and I only realize it because the thoughts in my head are too vile to be my own, and they stick to the insides of my ears like filthy wax. And yet, there are many days where the shadows are kind to me. They blow me kisses and sing tunes and discuss the many other places they have traveled with me. They remind me of a small pub in Galway called The Crane Bar where I first heard Father O’Flynn played by real Irish musicians, how they filled nearly the entire space except near the sconces on the walls and in the center of the tables where candles and lamps glowed proudly. They remind me of the hotel room in New Orleans where I watched the sun rise over the city as I wrote one of my favorite songs – I am still convinced it was the shadows singing to me; I am not that great of a songwriter. They remind me of bedtime in my childhood and camping by the lake and my wedding night. These shadows are the personification of confluence. And so, I will occasionally whisper words of gratefulness for their being there, and their ironic way of reminding me of the light and laughter that otherwise fill my life, all the way to the corners and crevices where memories tend to sleep.





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