when time stopped
After I pulled dinner from the oven, I leaned against the counter and waited for it to cool. I’d been listening to Wesley Schultz’s new cover album, Vignettes at full volume to drown out my election anxiety. When his soulful and heart wrenchingly beautiful rendition of Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby came on, Perry wrapped his arms around me and I sank into him. The song played through for five minutes and we didn’t speak. We listened to the music and held each other in our dimly lit kitchen, the heat of the open oven door warming the room. It felt as if time had stopped and nothing existed outside this moment. And that’s what I love so much about music and how it became my first love. It takes every day moments and things we might otherwise not notice and makes a memory of them. It makes us pause and notice, coloring the mood and adding weight to the tone. And now every time I hear Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby I will be brought back to this moment where we folded into each other in the kitchen of our first home; when the air smelled of slow-cooked tomatoes and dark green olive oil; when the wind was so strong outside that the house shuttered. I will remember the night when time stopped.
