Do you believe, brothers and sisters? Do you believe in our lord and savior John Coltrane and his apostles, Miles, Dizzy and Ella? I believe, dear readers. I believe in the holy powers of those first five notes of Blue Train. I believe in the curative powers of the crooning of Sarah Vaughn.
I'm mostly joking. What I do believe in, however, is the take-me-to-the-river-and-drop-me-in-the-water, honest-to-God healing powers of a drink shared with good friends. For that purpose, there are few places better than Jazz Night at Barça. The music is great, the cover is non-existent, and the bartender is a mad genius.
This particular night, everyone at the table was carrying a heavy heart. The three of us all were close to Dahlia and the wounds are still pretty raw. To add to it, one of us is going to lose another close friend to cancer soon, and the other has a grandmother in the hospital. We all needed a few drinks and Stefan, the aforementioned genius, was willing to supply them.
A lot of people use "weight" and "burden sharing" as metaphors for talking about grief. These try to apply physical qualities to non-physical emotions. Grief does not follow the law of conservation of mass. By transmitting it, grief is, in fact, reduced. As the night went on, and the alcohol flowed and the cigarettes burned. Eventually, the talk turned to thoughts of grief and confessions flowed as easy as the cocktails. As time went on, sadness turned to relief and eventually a few hours of brief lightness. The grief and sadness were still there, combined with a million other emotions, but for a while none of it had to make sense, because it sure as hell didn't make sense to anybody else.
That's a brilliant statement of poetry meets science, that 'Grief does not follow the law of conversion of mass'. But really, Miles is Coltrane's apostle? I have my doubts... As for lord and savior... Monk? Tatum? I'm sorry, I'm a terrible person to argue about this point... Your writing is amazing, keep getting it out brother.
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