and they say so, and we hope so

Winching your body up out of bed with slow strokes, it takes a measured song to keep them going. You feel the dip of the rope between pulls as you rise. There is no humane reason to get up before five, even on a Monday. It is really only possible with four hands on the line. Once up, you sing yourself into the bathroom, into the toothbrush, into pants, into the doorway, and into the car--mercifully, the passenger seat.

The song is done, but at the airport, the rope slips unexpectedly, and you experience several wild minutes of flightlessness. However, you get your hands back on the line, and you take the opportunity to slide them back down against your friend's.

Hoisted high into the air at last, you recall the song, and this time it makes you smile. You feel compelled to write down your memory of it. It is strange to catch yourself writing in the same second-person puzzle-box style that you once found so affected. But stranger still is how essential this song has been to your day when you did not know it before the weekend. If days were years and songs were people, the realization would be the same.

One more pull, and then belay.