Flicker

I blame the SATs for my brief flirtation with this song several years ago.  I think they drove me out of my head.  Actually I know they did because I ended up on the floor, my brain stuttering over the decision between more time to study and sleep.  I even bought the album and wandered the halls of my high school with it ringing in my ears.

I remembered this song out of the blue just now.  It’s pretty in a plaintive sort of way.  That or I’m too far gone in nostalgia to think straight.  A really warm day in spring always reminds me of staring out the open window of a classroom counting the minutes until summer.  Or sitting at an old banged-up desk in the library looking for any excuse to avoid a paper.  Sometimes I only touched books to shore up the piles of them teetering over my laptop.  Actually reading one was near impossible.  I’d be really interested for a page and half.  Then I’d seize an errant thought and run away with it, planning my great summer adventure.

I knew perfectly well the real summer wouldn’t be an adventure.  I would just sleep, goof off and sit around.  But I miss the sense of staring down an endless open space.  The last time I was lucky.  The summer went on so long I almost forgot what school was.  It was beautiful.

They always say you shouldn’t worry about being older, because soon enough you will be old, and you’ll want all the younger years back.  So now I’m old and I can see they were right.  I’ll stay here in the echoes of too much caffeine and polished tile floors a minute longer.  The music helps it not fade away.

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