Where I Think You Are When You Are Not Here.

This last week, I spent mostly in my car, zooming around the greening land, like a busy spider weaving a web in haste and without time.
Jay has flown again, to the Land of the Rising Sun, and as I have never been there, I cannot image him anywhere solid, but instead he floats, Somewhere Out There, like a sleeping balloon man whose ribbon I hold in my hand without thinking. You know when you are holding something you never want to put down, but you carry on with your day, and forget it is there, except for a vague awareness of how hot and clammy your hand has become, or how awkward or difficult things are with only one hand.
And so above me he follows me, floats, sleeping, throughout my day, and Up There, where I cannot see, he drifts through beautiful moss gardens that drip with water, where the breeze rustles the leaves over his head, tickles his sleeping beard, and stirs the bamboo, making them clack together, through bright lights of city nights, between gleaming glass towers that shower him in little bokeh balls of sunlight.

Though I know in reality he is not at all sleeping and dreaming, that in fact he is actually more likely running, just running, flat out through the night, leaping over obstacles, throwing aside impediments, barely pausing to rest, running to get home to us. And I like to think he too holds my ribbon, and somewhere above him, I am streaming out behind him, floating in a sunlit garden where children play and laugh, and we bake cakes and read to one another, pausing to tickle the cats, lie in the grass and watch the clouds roll around the sky, and thinking about what to make for dinner.