It’s a surreal world inside headphones.  There’s a sense of clarity of every particle of sound, like a ray of light streaming through the air, revealing the dust.  You’re hypersensitive to your fingers brushing a string, the shirts dragging overhead, your own breathing.  The guitar accidentally bumping the wall has the startle of an earthquake.  Everything becomes another detail that you’ll want to edit out, even though you never noticed it before.  I sat in my cramped quarters, all elbows and knees, door shut to keep out the cat, and began to record.  Suddenly  an onslaught of music and voice filled my cocooned head completely, every note clear and ringing as crystal.  If you don’t get it on the first take, I realized, acclimatizing, it’s probably going to be a while.

I hope she likes it, as I love it, as I’ve loved her, as she now likes me, apparently.