this seems reasonable. an old student of mine recently wrote about a break up, asked how you mourn someone who's still here on earth, who you might run into at the local drop-in store buying beer. no worse or better than an actual death, just far stranger than one. i, of course, had no answers, only remembered being in a similar situation, wishing a simple "wussup" to the boy i once loved as he left a restaurant bathroom.
my students often leave mix cd's and reese's cups on my desk for no reason. it's like, in their awesomeness, they know when i might need some strange combination of the cure, guster, modest mouse, and taylor swift. (thanks jo.) it's funny. the first time i taught said mix artist, she was a middle schooler. she looked just like taylor swift, so when she said that was her favorite artist, i died laughing. "you don't say."
if growing up is weird, staying grown might just be weirder. you're supposed to carry the collateral of wisdom, but really, you still feel like the eight year-old who shot the goal in the opponent's basket and felt good about yourself for three seconds before the fall/onslaught of church-league parents told you otherwise.
what i love about my grown friends is their taste. it implies time spent living. if i go to my girlfriend's house now, it's not going to be catered by moe's or a case of ultra. there will be indian inspired lettuce wraps, growlers of browns or--tonight--sierra celebration, a bottle of rose, some story about the new studies on asberger's. the women i hang out with are women. seasoned. they have attitude, are unapologetic, carry with them belief systems potted in experience rather than hearsay.
i recently caught myself lying about my age. just by a year, but still. i'm petrified of getting older, and, in truth, it has little to do with the whole mortality thing and more to do with the whole desirable thing. but then, the men i'm into are older, have wisdom to bestow. and, again, the women i love carry with them careers--often multiple--and great stories about their own youth-fumbling. they are way hotter at 30 or 37 than they were at 24. why is it that i'm so weird about moving into the thirties when you couldn't pay me to be in my twenties again?
retta's learning. she's not perfect, but she knows what she likes and what she doesn't, what works and what doesn't. long walks at lunchtime: yes. fleece: yes. water while being poured into the bowl rather than water standing still: yes. the ramifications of eating a shoe horn: no. fellow pit descendants: yes. jack russels: lord no.
i'm often reminded of that scene in "prime "where uma thurman and brian greenburg go to a hip hop club. she's in her late thirties. he's young. they make use of a hoodie to dissolve that, and maybe a biggie song. what no one tells you about getting older is that you feel the same as you did at ten or twenty. you just have this cape of knowledge and, perhaps, baggage. i don't know why ret grew out of blue pillow, really, or why she's become a little lazier, less sensitive. i have to believe that, in aging, one of the amazing gifts is that we never have to buy into things we once believed that have failed us, but rather remember those root-beliefs and can build from them something hearty, fleshly, satisfying.
Origin: quickpua.blogspot.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment