We are all out of our time much of the time. But I don’t
want to much lament this human condition, for time traveling is what we must do.
It is good to be in the moment – to be yourself here and now. But to be human,
we must extend back to who we were and out to who we might become.
And so I sat in a coffee shop, sipping on a straw anchored
in a pink fizzy creamy drink. The dishwasher on break blew the end of the paper
wrapping of his straw into the hair of the barista on the other side of the
counter. She look up at him and her eyes said it all. But I won’t you tell
what. Then this is what the other barista - first her pony tail swinging to the
music coming out of the radio, then her hands scrubbing clean the lipstick from
a white coffee cup at the sink – said out loud: “I’m nostalgic for the summer I
haven’t had yet.”
It was early spring. The sun bright on the bagel place
across the street. The shadow of a lamppost low on the pale yellow wall looked
as if it might walk on down the sidewalk. But the air was still late winter
cool. And I was drinking pink and eventually I would be sucking on ice.
How could anyone so young be nostalgic? And then my mind
slipped and I was young. I was something of a fool then, not because I was
young, but because I think I had failed to learn what, at this age, seems like some
small wisdom. Actually, I am often amazed at what young people know. And maybe
I did know more then than I now have recalled that I did.
A scene flashed into my mind. Young people – call them kids
– whose faces I cannot now see, sitting in the Pizza Hut, waiting for a pizza,
blowing the ends of the wrappers of our straws at each other. What did our eyes
say to each other? I cannot tell you, because I cannot remember. There must
have been some of what I now can see through my older eyes as I sit here
watching.
But you see, it doesn’t matter. I’m already nostalgic for
the summer I haven’t had yet. I would tell you all about it, but again, you
see, I haven’t lived it yet. But it might surely be as sweet as a
strawberry-peach cremosa. Or maybe I’ll have an egg crème. Or maybe I’ll fall
in love with someone all over again.
for Bailie, Cheyenne, and Alejandro
