You believe you are loved, even though you are not; and you believe you will never be loved, even though you are; and repeat makes Loreena McKennitt’s The Mummer’s Dance a four-hour serenade. Something about the season or the not-cold Boston December or overplayed Enya on the radio and in coffee shops that makes The Mummer’s Dance appropriate. Audrey Hepburn hated pastries, and begged to eat ice cream outside of Tiffany’s instead, but was forced to eat pastry and drink coffee and ignore the fans watching from the sidelines. Moon River was initially called Blue River, and that pair of drifters could be making up or breaking up or making up to break up or breaking up to make up, or choosing to get the tree out of its box earlier and earlier each year.

And you think that love isn’t so hard to find when you’re not looking, and when you are looking for breakfast — a bagel or pastry, even a doughnut if necessary — sometimes you make do with pretzels because pretzels can be breakfast if you want them to be. And you turn off repeat, and you turn down the volume of the music, and you do not turn off the music because something about the season or the not-cold Boston December or overplayed Enya on the radio and in coffee shops that makes listening to music at bedtime appropriate