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Residue Alicia Sometimes Eppur si muove. And yet it moves. Galileo was talking of the sun in relation to earth, but here in the depths of the garage studio, I can see she is the one who knows the precise moment each song should advance and move towards an ending, not me. I’m going to be ok without her, but it’s becoming clear that she drives this creative process and I’ll have to adapt. She crouches on her bass amp, the hum and drone elongated as she accentuates each pluck. Me, with the second-hand Gibson we agreed to bring, slumping on my practice amp, cursing the hobble of notes we have decided to stitch together. We are the very essence of long forgotten. We have become a residual echo. We met in the hall where a friend was getting married. Not exactly a Scout hall, but close. Torn posters still sticky-taped from the eighties, windows that were once covered in pink ribbons and doors that wouldn’t quite close. Left-over ghosts of old vinyl lining the seats. She got up on stage and sang ‘The Way It Goes’ by Gillian Welch. Her voice swept across the stage and flew directly into the night air. I was in awe. We spoke for a while towards the end and the last thing she said to me was, here’s an idea, let’s start a band. I wanted to reply yes immediately but whispered, I always live on the edge. This was never true and the sentence has stayed attached to me like soft static and sometimes made its way out during our arguments. We fell in love over Levon Helm's drumming. Strange, but there you have it. We loved the steadiness of his beat, the reliance of his cymbal hits and the spaces in between. We craved music. We played at so many weddings. We had rotating band members. It was always like The Last Waltz with really good cake and no goodbyes. Every time I looked in her eyes and I knew we would always have the crunch and sparkle of song. The love that comes with the right amount of discord. But over time and many songs later, we just lost a connection. A wire had come loose. Now, she sits there, telling me my E-minor sounds a little flat. I play back the track. Eppur si muove, I say. I thought she would appreciate the science of all this. She wears the face that says I should know better. We both fuss over the choices of chords, all the while