TBT DREAMING BACKWARD

TBT   dreaming Backward

 

Once you are past your twenties, or sixties, can you ever recapture some of that feeling you had as a teen … on a really good day? One of the easiest ways I know to do it is through music.

 

I was twenty-two when the Beach Boys sang “When I Grow up to be a Man.” Some of the girls at the Y.W.C.A. and I laid on the roof in the summer sun, lathered with baby oil and Coppertone. I have since paid for all that fun in the sun with several basal cell cancers, but that day with the radio blasting and the DJ reminding us constantly “to turn so you won’t burn,” truly growing up was the last thing on our minds. We all had dates and we all enjoyed that feeling of looking in the mirror feeling like beauty queens, knowing our clothes fit well, our smiles were golden and we were flying in our heads to Cinderella’s ball. As I showered, singing “When I Grow UP to be a Man,” to the top of my lungs, it never occurred to me that four of my friends were listening until I reached to grab my towel and cold water balloons flew at me as though they had minds of their own. 

 

“We don’t think so, Myra,” they sang to me while they squealed and ran, probably wondering what crazy stunt I might think of to get back at them.

 

But I had no time for pranks just then because I was going to live out a dream. A special friend had asked me if I were able to see perfectly, what would be the first thing I wanted to do. Silly 22-year-old said: “I’d find a light blue Thunderbird convertible and drive it so fast the wind couldn’t even catch me.” Often I dreamed this dream, driving with the top down and feeling my hair fly toward the sky and me seeing the whole world at one time.

 

I will never know where he found a light blue Thunderbird, and I will never forget the gesture he made toward trying to make my dream happen, even though he refused to let me drive it totally by myself.   …

 

And the Beach Boys still sing into that memory, this time “Fun, Fun, Fun.”

 

So people move away and lives change, and it’s all a little crazy now, yet I smile into those songs and watch the flowers go by, and take a little time to pick just one to put in the bouquet of the dreams of my memory.