Lately I’ve been thinking that in order to get more reading done, I am going to have to push myself to get up earlier and work in the quiet overnight hours. Easier said than done. Even these hours are difficult on some mornings when the kid is sick, restless, or just up in the middle of the night for whatever reason. But tonight seems like one of those nights where he might sleep for a while. Exhausted after a long day, I conked out around 11pm, after D. finally coaxed him to sleep. 

            There are several things on my mind this morning. Last night we got an email from his daycare informing us that the children will be doing a “shelter in place drill” next week. This is the going euphemism for “active shooter drill” these days. My two-and-a-half year old will have to participate in his first active shooter drill. Given the direction of this country and its stupid, destructive obsession with guns, it will be the first of many. At best, we can only hope that he will only experience the drills and not the genuine article. That’s the kind of fucked up world that we brought this kid into and it’s hard not to feel many feelings about that. Sadness, guilt, anger, despair, among them. 

            Wayne Shorter died yesterday at age 89. As fucked up as this world can be, it is one in which Wayne Shorter existed and made beautiful music. WKCR announced that they are pre-empting all programming for the next two days and playing Shorter’s music. I listened to some of the broadcast yesterday afternoon, as I sat at my desk doing some work in the hour before I had to go pick up the boy from daycare. They were playing Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way album.     

            I woke up this morning to De La Soul’s catalog waiting for me on my Tidal app. I was looking forward to this day. I expected it to be a joyous day on Black Twitter, with people sharing and discussing De La Soul’s music. But Trugoy passed away last month. And Twitter is a Nazi shithole now. I saw that the remaining members of De La Soul had an event last night celebrating the release and honoring Dave. When I woke up, I turned on my phone to quickly listen to a couple of tracks before getting up. “Stakes Is High” has been on my mind lately, so I started there. The following track “Sunshine” pulled me in. I had heard it before, but didn’t know it well. The song filled me with nostalgia for those innocent days in my life when this music was first out. I hopped over to 3 Feet High and Rising to listen to “Eye Know.” I want to start with the early albums and move my way through. I’m looking forward to AOI: Bionix, an under-appreciated album that I loved, which helped me through a difficult phase in my life. I found myself longing to have a De La Soul listening party with some friends. Let’s just hang out, blaze up, and listen to all these albums one by one until we get through as many as we can. Alas, that’s just not possible right now. All I have is this quiet morning, as I sit at the dining table, quietly typing at my laptop, and listening along to De La Soul, and Wayne Shorter, in these wee small hours of the morning.