Shortly after moving in with my girlfriend
[ now wife ]
alyssa.

I would vanish to the office/studio/corner to work on music.
We would routinely have a house full of people
and I after an hour
I would start slowly walking out of the room backwards hoping no one would notice.
one backwards step at a time

Inevitably
The she would find me
Head phones on
chipping away at whatever was rattling around between my ears.

after a few moments of silently standing in the doorway
leaning
arms folded
against the door frame
listening to whatever ruckus I happen to be making…
staring at the back of my head
( more often that not )

She would say
“so,.. when are you gonna make _ME_ a pretty song”

The last time she asked with a few filtered steve reich samples I happened to be playing around with I said “right now.”