Good Riddance

Good Riddance
by Helen Sadler

I am not sure when it started.

Do we ever really know when the will to change begins?

Was it that December when I heard the Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Mariposa” and began to cry?  Was it the lunch date with a friend who was teaching virtual school and loving it?  Was it the night my back froze up so solidly I couldn’t walk? Was it meeting with my old principal to see if he had a job for me?

All of those incidents contributed, to be sure.  But the real answer is this:

It was the dream.

I was no longer teaching high school, but instead was at Cypress Lake Middle School.  I was incredibly happy in this dream.  One of my current high school students brought me a milk shake to my new classroom, and told me that everyone wished me well.

The ball started rolling.

I made some calls. I told my new principal, who made a call.  And in less than two months, I secured a position at that very same middle school.

It was the one I dreamed of working at when I first arrived in Fort Myers.  They were doing great things with writing, I heard. They were well-established and liked. 

I subbed there a couple of times.  I think one time I pressed a lucky stone into the sandy ground near their parking lot, with a prayer to work there some day.

But I had been sidetracked into a job I loved.  I went from my original middle school teaching role (my midlife career change had been specifically to teach 7th graders) to high school because it seemed my best opportunity to land in a new position when I had already given up my old one. To be honest, a bit of panic mode.

Now it was time for something new.

I spent those last weeks of the 2013 school year packing up six years worth of classroom stuff, loading in my car, sometimes with the help of students. I accidentally melted some of my electric candles, and I found more glue sticks than I ever imagined I had. I left a cache of wooden rulers behind by accident.

The last day I proceeded to leave the parking lot and thought, Hmmm, let me put my iPod on shuffle and see what comes up. What message will I get?

Some familiar guitar licks came on, and I chuckled to myself:

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

Good old Green Day sending me off with a bit of irony. Even though the last thought on my mind when I left my beloved Lehigh Senior High School was “good riddance,” I took the message to heart.

I’m in my fourth year at CLMS now, and I am still waiting to love it there.  It has been slowly growing in that direction.  This is probably the best year yet.

The grass is never greener – right?  Everyone knows that. Sometimes we need to be careful what we wish for. I’ve often wondered why I have not felt what I expected. But who knows?

I like to think that the words “Make the best of the test and don’t ask why/ It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time” is the message I need to cling to, as I continue to work my way through my daily middle school life.  And there are many days I feel it close at hand. Especially lately.

Perhaps one day I will feel the happiness I felt in that dream. Perhaps not.

Meanwhile, I’ll focus on my own ending to this song:

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right

I hope to have the time of my life.

(And, of course, I needed to include the bluegrass version of the song!  I saw Jeff Parker in 2015 at Bluegrass Night at the Ryman. He is a helluva mandolin player.)

Never Gonna Let You Go

Response to Prompt #21: A Musical Stamp

I hate this fucking song. I hate all these sappy, top 40 love songs from the 80's. I just do. I'm right back there when everything changed, when my family fell apart...

I'm never gonna let you go
I'm gonna hold you in my arms forever...

My parents had been separated for about a year. They dropped that bomb on us the summer before when we returned from sleep-away camp. Not an inkling of a suspicion by my sister or me. Both crying, they choked back the tears trying to explain. "We're going to live apart for awhile," Dad said, with a sadness in his eyes I had never seen before.

"We love each other and both of you very much," my mom eeked out in between sniffles. They explained they had some stuff to work out and somehow we knew, whether they said it or not, they were going to marriage counseling.

My dad took his already packed suitcases, gave my sister and me hugs, and he left in a cab. My mom sunk into sadness and retreated to her bedroom. And now, we were the children of a broken home. This was new for us. Divorces weren't as common then. I only had one friend in a single parent home. But we adjusted. We got by. And Dad was never too far away. His office was still in the basement of our home, so he was there during the week.

In less than a year, we were shocked to hear Dad was moving back home. I don't remember how they gave us the news, or even how we celebrated. But my sister and I were elated we would all be together again.

I was a wrong as I could be
To let you get away from me...

I was happy. Young, naive, and relieved my parents were going to give it another go. I believed they had put their problems behind them, and things were back to normal now. Heck, I never saw it coming in the first place. How could I believe we would be anything other than a family. I was twelve. And that's how we lived, like everything was normal again. My Bat-Mitzvah was approaching, and we would enjoy a huge family gala, just like my sister had a couple of years prior.

...But now that I've come to see the light
All I wanna do is make things right

We were a family again. In fact, it seemed so normal I have no specific memories at all of that time period. Nothing stands out. Only the barrage of cheesy love songs on the radio. I loved to listen to late night dedication shows. People would call up and send long distance dedications to their loved ones across the globe, or even dedicate a song to a secret romantic interest right across town. It seemed like all the songs were about my parents.

But if there's some feeling left in you
A flicker of love that still shines through
Let's talk it out
Let's talk about second chances

I believed it. I believed the entire charade. My family was back together again. I would no longer have that ache in my heart when I was walking down town with with my friend's family thinking, I'll never have this again. I was young and optimistic. A child who just wanted her family to be together.

What and see
It's gonna be sweeter than it was before
I gave some then but now I intend
To dedicate myself to giving more
This time you can be sure

As we all know, nothing is sure except life and death. And just before my 13th birthday, my parents marriage was surely dead. There was sadness and tears this time too. But the tears were different. They weren't droplets of soft cleansing saline, they were hard water tears. They stung like little needles. And there were no promises of love or things to work out. There was an emptiness. Dad wasn't there, and though my mom stood there in front of us, there was just a shell of the lively woman who raised us. She had all the joy and air sucked out of her, and a part of all of us died that day...

Fuck the 80's. Fuck Sergio Mendes, and Peaches and Herb, and Atlantic Starr with their double r. Fuck all those cheesy love songs that romanticize love gone bad and reunited.  Some things just can't be fixed once their broken.




Lyrics from Never Gonna Let You Go by Sergio Mendes copyright Sony Music.

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

Response to prompt #2: A Musical Stamp

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
by Annmarie Ferry

The song starts playing in my head, and suddenly I'm an 8-year-old doe-eyed, curly haired girl again.

___________________________________

It was my favorite ritual. My grandpa would take me to A&W, and we'd sit in a booth, one with our own little personal jukebox.

"Here you go, kiddo," he says as he nonchalantly flips a quarter in my direction. "You pick the first song."

I flip through the selections. Debbie Boone's You Light Up My Life is one I usually pick, but I flip past it. Linda Ronstadt's You're No Good is another favorite, but it's not what I want today.

When I see the title, I know it's the one. I place my quarter in the machine and carefully punch in the code.

Don't know when I've been so blue
Don't know what's come over you
You've found someone new and
Don't it make my brown eyes blue...

Crystal Gayle's silky, deep, soulful voice belted out lyrics to a song I was no where near being able to understand. In my naivety, I took the chorus literally, giving me hope that my own set of boring brown peepers may one day morph into beautiful blue eyes, the blue of my favorite marble at home.

______________________________________

I sat on the chaise lounge in our bedroom, stroking the sage green microfiber, raking marks in the fabric, then erasing them with a swipe of my hand.  Tears welled up in my chocolate brown eyes, eyes I had finally learned to love, mostly because my blue-eyed husband loved them and partly because I realized they weren't going to magically turn blue. 

My husband of 25 years nonchalantly tosses his clothes into moving bins, avoiding eye contact at all costs. He never could stand it when I even got teary-eyed, much less when I broke into all-out sobs.

I could leave him to himself to complete this dirty deed, but something in me feels compelled to sit right where I am--not willing to beg him to stay, but not able to let him go.  

"I don't understand," I whispered. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"For fuck's sake," he snapped. "I told you. You didn't do anything. "You never do anything. I'm just over this part of my life and need to move on."

"Did the blue-eyed blonde girl at work make it easier for you to make your move?" I bore through him with my glare, wishing I could actually shoot daggers from my eyes. 

It was only a faint suspicion, one I had convinced myself that was concocted out of paranoia, but my instincts were confirmed when he froze in the middle of folding up one of his yellow-pit stained undershirts.  

"Why do you have to go there?" he retorted. "She has nothing to do with it. I just don't love you anymore." 

I didn't ask the next question aloud because I knew he didn't hold the answer. Yet, I couldn't help but wrack my own brain. How is it possible for a couple to be partners in life for a quarter of a century to just fall out of love as easily and quickly as they fell in love? After all they've been through--miscarriages, children's births, illnesses, losing parents, a daughter's wedding--how in the hell can one of them just wake up one day and decide he's not in love anymore?

Crystal belted out the second verse in my head:

I'll be fine when you're gone

I'll just cry all night long

Say it isn't true and

Don't it make my brown eyes blue...

In this moment, I get it. I get the sadness and desperation behind this song, the longing for everything to stay the same, the nagging feeling of regret for not paying enough attention to sense our relationship was faltering. 

All I want now is to go back. 

   

https://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/601657_orig.jpg

lyrics courtesy of Metro Lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/dont-it-make-my-brown-eyes-blue-lyrics-crystal-gayle.html

Prompt #21: A Musical Stamp

 Just as the scent of something in the air has the power to transport us to a specific place and time, so does the nostalgia of a certain song. Whether it's the melody or the lyrics, or the sound of a timeless singer's voice, or maybe just the association, we all have a song that somehow stamped our lives.

For Kenny Chesney it was John Cougar's "Jack and Diane." In his own song "I Go Back," he sang that the song painted a picture of his life and his dreams. He's right. We all have those songs, the ones that come on the radio and immediately conjure up images of people, places, events... a very special place in time.

For this piece, spend some time listening to your iPod, or flip through stations on the radio. Maybe pull out an old album, if you still have some. Listen for those songs that take you to another place and time. 

Using the song as a springboard, write a memoir, micro memoir, or fictional story about that special place and time. The song may or may not become part of the story, but it will act as a catalyst for getting you there. Whether you're a Kenny Chesney fan or not, perhaps the song and video will provide some additional inspiration.

A Moment In Time

A story written in response to Prompt #20: Not the Same Old Story.     


He was unlike anyone else I had ever met. Confident and relaxed, not arrogant. Just comfortable in his own skin. I thought of him as different, but he really wasn't. Being with him just reminded me how cookie cutter alike my friends were. That's what made him feel different.

     "Hey, do you want to get together and study for the exam?" he asked me after class one day. We had already made small talk on several occasions. It wasn't uncommon for us to roll our eyes at stupid comments by our classmates and exchange glances of confusion when the prof lost us during the lecture. I was relieved he asked, because I needed a study buddy and there was something about him. I was drawn to him and I wasn't sure why.

     "Sure. When?"

     "You want to meet by the lake on Thursday?"

     "Perfect." And it was. The lake was at the center of campus, surrounded by a hill of green grass. Lots of students hung out on the lawns throughout campus, studying or having lunch. Of course there was frisbee, football, and a little bit of making out too. It was busy and quiet all at the same time. It was the perfect setting, just what you'd picture for a college campus in Florida.

     "See you then," he said with a wink. And he left to run to another class. The wink flew over to me, a little butterfly of flirtation. I could feel myself smiling as I turned the other way.

     On the way back to my dorm I was surprised I wasn't feeling guilty.  I couldn't decide if I was attracted to Etienne or if I was just happy to have a new friend to study with. Either way, my boyfriend back home probably wouldn't approve. Oh well, I thought to myself. We're just getting together to study. In my head there was nothing to feel guilty about. But the flutter in my stomach, well that was a different story.

***

     It was hard to decide what to wear. I wanted to be casual and nonchalant, but of course I wanted to look cute. Cut off jean shorts were a no-brainer, it was what everyone wore in college in the 90's. My top took a little more thought. I knew I wouldn't wear my sorority letters because ET was independent. Greeks had a reputation with some independents- stuck up, desperate to fit in. And I was neither. Okay maybe as a freshman I was a little desperate to fit in. But now I was a junior, and Greek life had kind of lost its luster. Maybe that's why I was excited to hang out with him. I just threw on a t-shirt and my Birkenstocks. Casual and cute. "Where you headed?" my roommate asked as I walked out.

     "I'm going to meet some friends from class to study." I'm not sure why I used the plural, friends. I knew no one else would be there and I knew my roommate didn't give a shit anyway. I threw my backpack over my shoulder, tossed my hair back out of my eyes, and took off to the lake.

    The weather was perfect. The sun was pretty hot, but the humidity was low and there was a breeze. If I could make it to the lake without sweating too much, it would be nice by the water. Walking across campus I'd usually put on my headphones, but today I felt like taking in the sights and sounds on campus. Plus, I wanted to think a little. I needed to pre-study before I got there. I didn't want ET to think I was dumb. It's funny. I knew we were going to study for real. There was no reason to believe this was anything other than two classmates getting together to prepare for an exam. I knew that. I was okay with that. But I still felt giddy. Nervous.

     I stopped at the snack stand for a bottle of water and crossed the path to the lake. I could see he was already there, reading. He was laid out full length on his back, with his head on his messenger bag and his feet crossed at the ankles. He was holding the book in the air above his face. I never understood how that could be comfortable. I walked toward him and gently kicked his foot with mine. He dropped his book and looked up at me with a squint. "Hey, there."

     "Hi," I said. "Watcha reading?" I wasn't really interested but it seemed like the natural thing to say. He responded, and I don't even remember what he said. It was something for a class. I sat down next to him and we both dug into our bags for our textbooks and class notes. We exchanged pleasantries, and were easily distracted from our studies, as we talked about this party and that bar, and people we knew who walked by and waved. We went from talking about other people to talking about ourselves,  and our periodic "we should really get some studying done" yielded no such thing. Pretty soon we were lounged out on the lawn.

     He had such a kind face and a gentle way about him. He smiled a lot, and seemed so comfortable in his own skin. He wasn't the hottest guy I met in college. He was kind of short. Thick, wavy dark brown hair and long sideburns framed a scruffy face. He had milk chocolate brown eyes, gentle and trusting. And his mouth was a little big. He's what my mom would describe as "nice looking." The more I looked at him the more flirtatious I felt. It was hard to tell if he was feeling the same, he didn't give anything away. I could feel myself twirling my hair, winding my curls around my fingers. I do it when I'm nervous or bored.

     Our shoulders and elbows got tired from leaning on the ground and holding our heads up, and soon we were lying flat on our backs. He tugged at one of my curls and asked me if everyone in my family had curls like mine. It seemed like a polite way to ask if it was natural. I answered by saying I got my curls from my dad. I moved my head to his abdomen, just below his chest. "It's awesome," he said, and my cheeks were flushed with warmth. He continued to play with my hair, and we talked for a couple of hours while looking up at the sky. It probably wouldn't be considered studying, but we did talk about the exam and what we thought would be on it. We dotted our casual conversation with tidbits from class and the reading. At one point I think we even dozed off for a few minutes. The sunny breeze by the lake will do that to you.

     Eventually I noticed quite some time had past. The sun hung low in the sky, and the lawn started to clear. "I guess we ought to get going."

     "Yeah, almost time for dinner." He looked at me, and the afternoon sun coming in from the side of his face turned his eyes a glassy amber. I really wanted him to kiss me. I wondered what his lips tasted like. "It's a good thing we did so much studying. I'm sure we're both ready," he said with a lighthearted laugh. I don't know about how ready I was for the test, but I was ready for him to kiss me. He leaned in, but not from the head, from the chest and abdomen. He shoved his fingers up the nape of my neck and into the back of my hair like a human comb, and he grabbed a handful. "Uh, this hair." I smiled and he let go. "See ya in class?" I took a deep breath and exhaled with a,

     "Yup. See you in class." And he walked off. And that was it.

     We bantered and talked cordially like old friends in class over the next few weeks, and we enjoyed an in-class friendship. Then the semester ended. I'm not exactly sure why, but we never saw each other again. I always wondered if he knew I had a boyfriend or maybe he had a girlfriend. But for some reason, we shared a really brief and intimate interlude without so much as a kiss. And then, poof. It was over. Just a tiny moment in time.