Stairway to Heaven

“This is a total slow dance song.”

“A what?”

“A slow dance song. Like at the end of a dance? Like a party, at school? Or summer camp! And they play a slow song so you can dance with someone you like.”

“Oh.  I’ll never have a slow dance.”

Nate and I are driving home from somewhere. It’s month 7 of the pandemic. When it started, he was in grade six. His skin was perfect. His screen time was limited. He had just scored a goal in the last game of his hockey season and he was worried that the kids on his new baseball team wouldn’t like him.

Now here we are seven months later and sitting in the front seat, the air is a bit ripe between us. I think I can smell his hair, hair he thinks about more than he used to. Time has sped up and slowed down and he thinks he’ll never have a slow dance. I think he will. But I have a better sense of time. The pandemic might have affected one fiftieth of my lifetime but it’s coming up to one twelfth of his.

“It’s a good song, no? Total make out song. Which is weird cuz it’s not about sex? It’s about death! I think. Or spirituality! It’s about spirituality?”

“Okay. Can we get takeout?”