Looking Back

Birds, Waffles, Shenanigans

She sits at the kitchen table, almost nine o’clock at night, listening to her 16 yr. old daughter and her boyfriend giggle while they wrestle in the other room. The bedroom door is open, they are just playing, and she could hear them talking and laughing all the while. No shenanigans are being attempted tonight. Just two kids having fun with each other. The television is off, no music either. Just two kids. It makes her remember what it was like, that young love.

A time when you just couldn’t think past when you would get to see him again; how you worried endlessly about your breath for when he wanted to kiss you and just – the possibilities of life.   There was so much to be discovered yet, so you talked for hours on end, about every subject under the sun.   Everything he said made sense and everything you did felt like magic.

She remembered his favorite dinner, enchiladas.  She liked to eat breakfast for supper, and waffles were her favorite breakfast food.   After they married they made enchiladas every Friday night and waffles every Saturday evening.   He would cook up a little extra batter and then the next morning they fed the leftovers to the birds out in the parking lot.   They talked about everything, notable exceptions were politics (she mainly listened) and religion (he didn’t believe in God; she had been too young and stupid to challenge him on that).

She recalled nights under the stars, out on the plastic lounge chairs by the pool at their apartment complex.   It was always so cool to lay there looking up as he tried to show her the constellations.   She never could see a thing, although she always said she did.  To this day the big and little dippers were all she had ever found.   Later he would tell her that she had tunnel vision, and she would respond that he had selective memory and hearing.   They said a lot of things to each other “later.”   But in the early moments, the things they said sounded more like lovely music.   Their words were epic, every day was filled with hugs and their hearts beat as fast as hummingbirds’ wings…back when they were kids.

It’s getting pretty quiet back there.   I’d better go sit in the living room and play with the dog for a few minutes, she thought.  Get closer to her bedroom just like my Mom used to, and make some noise.

“You kids want some popcorn?”