descending
Coming down into Detroit, at first the sun was setting above this thick blanket of clouds that stretched indefinitely and it was gorgeous, it really looked like I was looking directly at a sheep, and everything was a little bluish but it was still bright out.
Then we descended through the clouds and it felt like we were submerged underwater and I kept trying to take a breath to reassure myself that I wasn’t really drowning. And then I suddenly saw a sliver of sunset and realized that I could see again and we were in between two cloud blankets — a field of clouds above us, a field of clouds below us, and we hovered in between with a hot pink sliver of sun.
Did you know that there can be two layers of clouds with space in between? It was surreal. And still bright because of the sunset.
And then we descended through this second cloud layer and I took lots of breaths again, unable to focus, my eyes filled with clouds.
And then very suddenly it was dark outside and we were looking over Detroit with all its lights on.
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Steve picked me up at the airport and we drove home, together again, home again. After spending two weeks without someone, having that surreal experience of knowing someone you love only by their voice, and then returning and finding that that voice is attached to a body, it’s a head-spinner.
We went in the house and I whispered hello to the cats, barely perciptible. The dogs were locked in our bedroom, and when Steve walked in the bedroom door you could hear Moby already moaning, moaning like a human bound with duct tape. I don’t know if he smelled me or just knew that I was home. He bounded out to meet me, desperately. He fell to my feet and rolled over and rolled back up and licked my face and moaned and fell down again, trying so hard not to jump on me and unable to fully obey Steve’s orders that he blared from above while we huddled below in a puddle of tongues. Joon pranced and licked, pranced and licked, pranced and licked, pranced and licked.
I’ve read that dogs don’t know time — you can be gone an hour or a week and they won’t know the difference. That’s not true.
Moby has been at my feet ever since, making up for lost time.
