Episode Overview

Podcast: The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
Episode: 1420 – “Losing the Band” by Ashley D. Escobar
Air Date: December 25, 2025
Host: Maggie Smith

This Christmas Day episode of The Slowdown centers on the themes of absence, memory, and longing during the holidays, using Ashley D. Escobar’s poem “Losing the Band” as a lens. Host Maggie Smith reflects on how traditions highlight both presence and absence among loved ones, and how poetry helps us process these emotional complexities. The episode offers listeners a meditation on missing people—those far away, those gone—and on finding connection across distance, especially on days dense with tradition.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Emotional Complexity of Holiday Traditions

[01:09 – 03:20]

• Maggie Smith opens with personal meditation on Christmas, highlighting the bittersweet mix of togetherness and absence.
• She speaks about the limitations of physical gatherings and the longing for those who can’t join—due to distance or because they’ve passed away.
• Traditions become “constants,” making the “variables”—those missing—more sharply felt:

  “There are people dear to me who won’t be in that room or around the dining table... Some are no longer with us. Their absence, their distance from us, is felt all year round, but is more acute on holidays.” (Maggie Smith, 02:50)

• Describes efforts to bridge these absences—calls, texts, photos, Facetime—suggesting technology helps soothe, but never fully erases, the sting of distance.

Introducing the Poem and the Mood

[03:21 – 03:50]

• Maggie highlights the poem’s compact physical form, but its emotional resonance:

  “Today’s poem is fairly compact in its form, the way it looks on the page, but it’s so full of distance. And where there’s distance, there’s longing.” (Maggie Smith, 03:40)

• She frames the reading as an exploration of yearning and the way poetry collapses time and distance.

Poem: “Losing the Band” by Ashley D. Escobar

[03:51 – 05:54]

• The poem is read in full by Maggie Smith.
• Evokes subtle but potent images of memory and separation—holiday impressions, unfinished rituals (like a present unwrapped), and repeated gestures of remembrance and longing.
• Notable lines from the poem:

  “I should be somewhere three hours ahead from now.”
  “I haven’t wrapped your present yet.”
  “I kept your tulips in the icebox and the tambourine in the fireplace...”
  “I’ll wait all night in 30 degrees if it means icicles on spidery branches and pure noise.”

• The poem’s details—winter, keepsakes, missed opportunities—capture the ache of absence and the small ways we seek connection.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the meaning of absence during holidays:

  “Their absence, their distance from us, is felt all year round, but is more acute on holidays. Like Christmas, traditions are constants, so the variables, the things that have changed, stand out all the more.”
  (Maggie Smith, 02:55)

• On the poem’s resonance:

  “But it’s so full of distance. And where there’s distance, there’s longing.”
  (Maggie Smith, 03:44)

• From the poem:

  “I won’t sleep on your side of the desk when you’re not here; we’ll hitchhike back to our world of air mail sailboats and wind-up toys and have teeth.”
  (Ashley D. Escobar, as read by Maggie Smith, 05:10)

• Closing emotional image:

  “I’ll wait all night in 30 degrees if it means icicles on spidery branches and pure noise.”
  (Ashley D. Escobar, 05:40)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:09] – Maggie Smith’s reflection on Christmas, absence, and traditions.
• [03:40] – Framing of the poem “Losing the Band” and themes of distance and longing.
• [03:51 – 05:54] – Full reading of “Losing the Band” by Ashley D. Escobar.
• [05:55] – Brief outro and call to sign up for the newsletter.

Conclusion

This episode of The Slowdown offers a nuanced blend of reflection, memory, and poetic resonance, making it a rich companion for anyone grappling with the complexities of holidays and absence. Through gentle yet piercing observations, and a quietly powerful poem, listeners are encouraged to sit with their longing and honor both the presence and absence of loved ones.