Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Still crazy after all these ears.
I used to bike around the neighborhood. I used to party with the girls on the way to the bars, under-aged, it didn’t matter. Mistakes get made and you realize that you’ve spent way too much time thinking, not knowing. Just when I’ve accepted the passage of another year, that year has passed. I know, I know, the best is yet to come, but what about today and yesterday?
I bought sweet corn and grilled those Silver Queens out in the DC sky. Some friends, the sun, the birds and I sat, looking, watching for the city to surprise us. We didn’t find much, just the amazing smell of cooking sweet corn and garlic cloves. We found tradition and nothing that you find in a pot of boiling water. We found the flavor we hoped for.
Laughing, probably with corn in my teeth, I said again, “We’re not getting any saner.” Maybe it was a story about a kid and her dad singing Roy Orbison on the way to school or maybe something about a lost shoe on 7th Street. They’re all the same story, really. A perspective and an impulse. Maybe a little smile and some embarrassment.
With every passing day, there’s a new quirk, a new thing. The oddball kids have grown into zany girls who more typically entertain for a growing season, only to let yet another field lie fallow. Girls who’ve gone from spinning in the backyard to spinning on the dance floor, maybe even a spinning class. Nothing expected except the unexpected.
Dog days, hot fun, hot dogs, whatever it is, the cliché is nostalgia. I look back and know that I’m not necessarily looking back at days or weeks, but rather time spent being entirely me. Sure, subtract a few forgettable years in junior high and probably one or two nights in high school. Always being me and true to my flavor is something I won’t shrink on.
So, when I look back on corny memories and cookouts, I know that the common thread isn’t the husk or silk, but the person instead. We’ve all got these quiet memories within us, poignant kernels that get sweeter with the passage of time. Silliness of childhood Kick the Can fests mixed with the seriousness of hare-brained schemes cooked up and served.
An afternoon riding around the neighborhood now is just as sweet as it was then. And an ear of sweet corn now takes me on the same light, airy, fresh route today as the first time. This is what summer is for, I guess, with flavors so distinct. Each summer is a little of the past and a touch of the future. Knowing and thinking don’t matter in the summertime, it’s the experiencing that counts.
I bought sweet corn and grilled those Silver Queens out in the DC sky. Some friends, the sun, the birds and I sat, looking, watching for the city to surprise us. We didn’t find much, just the amazing smell of cooking sweet corn and garlic cloves. We found tradition and nothing that you find in a pot of boiling water. We found the flavor we hoped for.
Laughing, probably with corn in my teeth, I said again, “We’re not getting any saner.” Maybe it was a story about a kid and her dad singing Roy Orbison on the way to school or maybe something about a lost shoe on 7th Street. They’re all the same story, really. A perspective and an impulse. Maybe a little smile and some embarrassment.
With every passing day, there’s a new quirk, a new thing. The oddball kids have grown into zany girls who more typically entertain for a growing season, only to let yet another field lie fallow. Girls who’ve gone from spinning in the backyard to spinning on the dance floor, maybe even a spinning class. Nothing expected except the unexpected.
Dog days, hot fun, hot dogs, whatever it is, the cliché is nostalgia. I look back and know that I’m not necessarily looking back at days or weeks, but rather time spent being entirely me. Sure, subtract a few forgettable years in junior high and probably one or two nights in high school. Always being me and true to my flavor is something I won’t shrink on.
So, when I look back on corny memories and cookouts, I know that the common thread isn’t the husk or silk, but the person instead. We’ve all got these quiet memories within us, poignant kernels that get sweeter with the passage of time. Silliness of childhood Kick the Can fests mixed with the seriousness of hare-brained schemes cooked up and served.
An afternoon riding around the neighborhood now is just as sweet as it was then. And an ear of sweet corn now takes me on the same light, airy, fresh route today as the first time. This is what summer is for, I guess, with flavors so distinct. Each summer is a little of the past and a touch of the future. Knowing and thinking don’t matter in the summertime, it’s the experiencing that counts.
