and then later, tonight, i am returned and wanting, waiting in the middle of the night for the drip drip drip of the drops from the airconditioner. i think of you, in the morning, rising with the sun like children do and searching them out, and i think of me, running to the beach. i am returned from singing, from filling up rooms with the sound of the joy that is lacking from them, with laughter as eli puts money in the collection. we are the three outsiders, that much is clear. but, against that, i shake the hand of the man behind me, touch his missing finger with my finger, and say 'peace be with you'. anna and i carol in chorus, higher and louder than we have sung for a long time and i think of new york and years ago, and the different things my voice carries now. i think of the way that we are all making noise and silence, that we are all leaning into walls and floors, that we are all trying our best to stand straight. i think of how we break and mend ourselves all the time, how we find all these little things to hold our hands, to make them wholer, to make them clap. but in the curl at the edge of anna's eyelid and the reflection of not even half of stan in the piano, in the sound of lidia's voice in the kitchen and my father, hunched over, drinking whiskey, in all of these things there is an understanding. it is a conclusion i have come to over the last few days. let me tell you about it.