Smoke Rings

Tell me where do they go,
These smoke rings I blow each night?
What do they do these circles of blue and white?
And why do they seem to picture a dream of love?
Why do they fade, my phantom parade of love?
(Smoke Rings, The Mills Brothers)

Sunday night is a blues night, a night to sit on my patio, Duncan at my feet, the laundry churning inside–as it has all day– melancholy music playing while a cigarette dangles from my lip. Sunday is the bluest night of the week and I can't help but plod through with a flourish. Were it Summer I'd don a wife-beater and pretend it was some time in the 30's in the Midwest, flat and lonesome with nothing but the smell of the corn and whiskey to keep me company. Sunday is a day that moves too fast despite its tedium, a day to reflect on all you'd hoped to accomplish and to feel guilt for all you didn't. Sundays are manic in their leisure and I've never known quite how to handle them. It may be the first day of the week but it feels like the last, like a dream about to burst at the sound of the clock. I do not like Sunday and have spent much of my life trying. I walked Duncan three times today, once through Leawood, the neighborhood which reminds me of the streets where I grew up and all the people I knew there who probably haven't thought of me in years. We strolled through the park where a new youth baseball team has sprung up, their white and blue uniforms stark and brilliant as they practiced against the warm sky. And finally we walked down Bowles, past the place where the bus stop used to be before a car skidded on the ice a few months back and smashed it to pieces. We stopped at the dog park and I let Duncan roam around off-leash, but neither of us seemed satisfied so we returned home to the patio where we've been sitting for an hour, The Mills Brothers playing on a loop while I smoke and he gnaws on mulch. Sunday feels like there should be something more but I don't know what. More late-night driving under serene and vast skies. More drinks with more people. More adventures. More beginnings.

Oh, little smoke rings I love,
Please take me above, take me with you.