I'm Adeli Mons, and this is The Slowdown.

At a reading recently in Chicago, I was asked if I had a muse.

The question struck me as hard for some reason, because I think, like Lauren Hill once titled

a song, everything is everything.

The Chicago reading took place only a few days after a friend had passed away.

So when it came to answering about my muse, it was hard not to blurt out life or death

or mortality or love.

It was also a little hard not to cry.

On stage, I wanted to give an honest answer, and I think I did.

Life is strange, that everything is strange, and that questions and curiosity are my muse.

But what was vibrating underneath all of that was, why do we lose people?

And what do we do with that loss?

At a time when so many of us have lost people, and so many people are hurting, it's hard

not to sit in any auditorium and instead of being composed and professional, just weep

about the weight of it all.

After the reading, I went out from our teenies with a dear friend.

We told funny stories about our friend who passed away and ate sweet potato fries and

laughed as much as we grieved, remembering is a way of resurrecting, and it's also a way

of connecting again, not just with the ones we've lost, but with those

of us that remain.

Today's poem does that work of remembering, but more than that, it does the work of reconnecting

with both the gone and the living.

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