Yesterday I wrote about nostalgia. Today I lived it. I had the honor of being invited to help out with the birthday/bowling/pizza/ice cream sundae party of two of my students tonight. Twins. Fourteen years old. Five friends along to help them celebrate and enough nail polish in one girl's bag to make me think she had her own bowling ball!
As I pulled in I was listening to Donna Summer's "Last Dance" and in my mind it was 1979, and I was fourteen all over again. It might just as well have been my My Ol' Man dropping me off at the Roll-A-Way Skating Rink in Newark, instead of me dropping this group off at the bowling alley. Yup, parachute pants, Farah Fawcett feathered bangs, and a pick in my back pocket to keep those bangs appropriately feathered all night long. (Only mine never did look as good as Farah's. Sigh...)
Now, here's the thing...I had good solid friends when I was fourteen. I wouldn't have traded them for anything and thanks to the wonders of social networking I'm back in contact with a few of them. But oh...my goodness...to have had these girls as my friends when I was fourteen? What a different world that would have been. What a different, better person I would be today. Such positive energy flows from today's youth. Yes, you have to look harder for it in some than in others, but tonight's group has a corner on the market. They are goodness and purity and sweetness and light all wrapped up in neat packages tied together with teenage craziness! These are the kind of girls who just make you glad to be alive.
Time will tell for these girls, as it has for all of us, what will become of their friendships. Some friends are born into your life...just a mere minute before or in front of you, as is the case with these beautiful birthday girls, but you know that particular friend will never ever leave your side. Some friends roll into town and you take one look at each other and you both think at the same exact moment, "Well, now where have you been hiding all my life?" as is the case with the twins' mother and myself. Some friends pop into your life and pop right back out again, but you are such a better person for their momentary presence in your life. Some friends come in and start to move the furniture around without your permission and you both eventually realize maybe you're not really supposed to be friends after all. Some friends move in, sink their feet into the ground around you, plant roots, and become part of the scenery. You can't imagine that they ever weren't there. Some friends do that whole planting roots thing and then for whatever reason, there is suddenly a different plan for their life and the roots have to be, sometimes painfully, uprooted and replanted somewhere else...away from you. Some times you know...you just know...you won't ever see that friend again. And sometimes, a friend that you thought was lost forever, suddenly reappears in your life and you pick right up where you left off.
Last dance...last chance...for love. Nope, I don't think this is the last dance for these girls. I think they'll be dancing and doing each other's nails and telling silly riddles and bowling and eating ice cream and playing games and being friends for a long time to come.
Today I love..I just really really love...friendship.
Today I love nostalgia. Dictionary.com says that nostalgia is "a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time", among other things. It's so interesting to think about nostalgia when being an educator. Our version of "a former place or time" is so very different from our students'. When I think of nostalgia, I go back in my mind 25, 30, (gasp!) even 40 years to times and places that are as crisp and clear to me as they were then. For our students, nostalgia may mean just last weekend!
As I told you all a while back, several of the teachers at my school went to the Dublin Literacy Conference a few weeks ago, where we heard author Ralph Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher allowed us to be the students that day as he gave us an example of his own poetic and nostalgic style of writing and asked us to try putting our own spin on it. Mr. Fletcher's memory poem began like this:
Sometimes I still remember
the good old days
When we...
and it finished with:
I still can't imagine
anything better than that.
His memory included the wonderful details of a Saturday night, the family preparing for church the next morning by getting all nine children bathed, bedtime cookies and kisses distributed, and each one tucked into bed.
Well, I did put my spin on that pattern, remembering the times when my own family would all pile into the station wagon headed for the drive in movie theater. Sleeping bags in the back and big brown buttery bag of popcorn to share in the dusky summer evening. This week I turned around and fed that pattern to my own students, asking them to try their hand at nostalgia. The results were fantastic!
I've typed too long already and missed my deadline, but here are just a few of their lines that you won't want to miss:
Sometimes I remember
the good old days
When we all pile in the car
and drive to my mom's store
Euro Delicatessen
First I go to the candy section
Later I have a sweet tooth
next is the chocolate section
Chocolate on my chin
the sausages and cheeses are last
We take some salami and gouda
finally my mom would close the store
Goodnight Euro Delicatessen
waiting for the next day to come
I still can't imagine
anything better than that.
Tim S.
~ ~ ~ ~
Sometimes I remember
the good old days
When we swam until we were prunes
Trying not to get our hair wet
Listening to the silliest music
Eating ice cream until it melted in the grass
Swooshing in the sand volleyball courts
Going on roller coasters
Seeing each other everyday
Wishing summer could last forever
I still can't imagine
Anything better than that.
Ally G.
~ ~ ~ ~
There were others that remembered "back in the day" before iphones. Some remembered building forts down by the creek, visiting grandparents after church on Sundays, and taking walks in the park with their family. Some remembered low gas prices. Some remembered earlier in this very school year, when the end of the year didn't seem so close and friends weren't thinking about not seeing each other anymore, and life seemed simpler.
Isn't it amazing, how we all have that sentimental yearning for a former time or place...even if that time or place is just yesterday?
I still can't imagine
anything better than that.
