Sometimes you find yourself standing behind a woman in a sundress and you hear music and wonder if you ought to tell her what you heard.
You could say it was No Time, American Woman or Erotic City and see what happens.
There are those who would say you’d be better off saying it was Day After Day or All I Ask Of You cuz they are more romantic but I am here to say that you might be surprised at how well Erotic City plays with the right audience and or the right moment in time.
Why?
Cuz timing is everything and if you say you got caught staring at the woman in the sundress you ought to have some sort of answer other than you were trying to figure out whether there were flowers on said dress cuz that isn’t believable.
You could go for broke and say you were staring at her legs because they reminded you of a girl you once knew but that is kind of dicey.
As for me, I wouldn’t confirm nor deny any of it. Hell I once answered “Red dress, blue dress– I like them both…especially on a hanger but I digress.
Teenagers can lead you down all sorts of interesting pathways some of which you expect and some you don’t.
Tomorrow morning my 18 year-old is going to have some wisdom teeth removed and while I am confident things will go well there are certain parts of parenting that never go away.
This moment reminds me a little bit of when he was 3 and had to have tubes put in his ears. The doc suggested he take a tiny sedative before hand to calm him down but it had the opposite effect.
He stood on the bed and ran in circles.
Eventually he did calm and after they gave him something to make him hold still so they could put the tubes in his mom and I walked off to the waiting room.
A short time later the nurse got us and said everything went well.
What I remember best is is how he surprised the nurse and doc and started screaming because he didn’t recognize where he was or who he was with.
We could hear him as we walked in and I saw tears welling in his mother’s eyes almost immediately. The nurse tried to explain the sedative doesn’t wear off that fast or something like that.
I am sure tomorrow will be fine and I know the kid is capable of taking care of himself and communicating in ways the 3 year-old couldn’t but I am slightly on edge.
*****
Teens don’t always take you down those roads because sometimes their experiences lead you to have conversations about yours or to at least think about them.
Sometimes they get you thinking about the people you are or were closest with and that can be an experience in itself.
Recent events got me thinking about how very few people I confide in or lean upon now. Some of it is because of life and how things just happen and some is very intentional.
There are choices I made because of the children not knowing if it was correct but hoping it was because they were very painful.
I still feel the cuts and see the scars from some of those but it seems different now.
Can’t decide if it is because I can sense a time not long from now when they will be on their own and some of the autonomy that consciously given up is taken back or if it is something else.
The funny thing about it is I very definitely was staring at a pair of legs and remembering past events while thinking about how slow and yet fast it has all gone by.
Had anyone been paying attention I am certain they would never have guessed where my mind really was. I would have been classified as doing what men do, except it was only briefly true.
Had a conversation with one of the few important people about the choices we make and thought about my experiences and my father’s advice.
As a younger man and child I thought of dad as being the typical Virgo. He was obsessive about making lists, organizing and labeling things.
Until the very end of his life I heard comments from my mother about how the old man had decided to reorganize cabinets or something.
“I wish he would consult me more. I like knowing where things are.”
Dad wouldn’t entirely ignore those requests but he didn’t necessarily respond immediately because if he saw a better way to do something he would go for it.
“You’ll appreciate how much better things work after it is done.”
On mom’s behalf I have to concede he wasn’t always good about hanging or placing things at her eye level. They often matched his, which frankly worked pretty well for me, but I digress.
Anyway, the thing I didn’t learn until I was older was how dad didn’t believe you could plan for the future with the sort of accuracy you might want.
“You should save for retirement and do your best to put money away but know life is going to make it impossible to plan for what happens two years from now. You might have the same job or you might have two new ones.
You might be living in the same house or you might have to move a few times, better learn how to just pick up and go.”
I learned that lesson well. Moved more times and had a few more jobs than I ever wanted to.
Chances are both of those will be repeated a few more times before I get to be carried to wherever my bones shall call home.
Damn, that is depressing, maybe I ought to go back to talking or thinking about the girl in the sundress.
