NOT nostalgic

It was still light out after taiji class at the temporary Rec Center, and it was a Thursday night, when everybody is tired and it isn't the weekend yet, and it doesn't take much. It was a nice group of long-time students, some of whom are new to each other but each brings their own experience to the mix, and it was fun to practice together.

My venture south on High Street before going home was ostensibly to check out the Park of Roses for a place to meet outside for the rest of the summer. My class needs a place to practice between mid-July and the beginning of fall, when they reopen the renovated Rec Center, and I think the gazebo will do nicely. But it was the slice of Clintonville life on the way there that pulled at me.

You pass the library first, and it was bustling as usual. Then there's a long line of tennis courts, and every one was in use. Down the hill toward the meadow are ballfields, runners, walkers, dogs, bicycles, the occasional frisbee, and the entrance to the Park of Roses, where a throng of sari-wearing Indian girls were meeting at the shelter house and spilling out into the garden. It was a fine summer evening in a great urban park, and I miss it.

I had another errand to do, so I drove to the coop and bought flour, cheese, honey, and beer. On my way out the door, I saw Zelda's friend Max running down Calumet, said hello, he said hi back. It's a neighborhood, and I don't live here anymore, so I go home to the suburbs for supper.

Did I ever tell you about the time I met Joan Baez walking up High Street? Okay, if you insist. It was the week the U.S. invaded Iraq so that Bush II could be a wartime-like president-like, and there was an antiwar event downtown. It also happened to be the week of a Baez concert at the Palace, and as I was walking to the demonstration, there she was beside me, walking with two friends. I asked her if I could shake her hand, and before her companions could put me in a headlock, she said okay. She's pretty tall and has really long fingers. I said I loved her work, she said "Me too," and that was that.

Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague

Turns out Zelda and two friends are looking at apartments in various parts of town, and at least one of them is a duplex in Clintonville right near the coop. Maybe they'll live there and maybe they'll opt for somewhere else. Her mother and I are gone for good.

Get over it. It was ten years, and it was no bed of roses, and it's been another five since then. Maybe in another five years I will feel that way about Methodistville.