I don’t know why it was or what it was . . . or still does, to make me look at Jennifer after’s she’s walked past. The smell of her perfume has done this for me and a certain look or smile has captured my attention for a minute or so from other women, but Jennifer just had that something that tickled my mind . . . or perhaps my body. I haven’t seen Jennifer in years, but in my mind . . . in my mind, she’s there. Sometimes her face appears to me in some memory of the past. Not a lurid past, but more of a make-believe past.
Actually, she reminds me of Ed Sheeran’s hit of a few years back. I think of Sheeran’s own comment about the song, “Wow, this has been my biggest video launch to date, so chuffed with the reaction.” The dancer in the song video captures my mind and body every time I play the song . . . “When your legs don’t work like they used to before . . . And I can’t sweep you off of your feet.” Sometimes just the hint of Ed Sheeran – “Thinking Out Loud” and a few words “We found love where we are . . .” run through my mind, like Jennifer just walking away . . . with my mind with her.
Have you ever had one of those days where you need to resurface and get a good look at reality? A friend had given me a free ticket for the Harlequin in downtown Olympia. “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” was interesting with beautiful young woman in the production. For some reason the young woman and Jennifer melded together in my mind and I was humming “Thinking Out Loud.”
I hummed the song while I stood up to leave, walked down the stairs, left through the lobby, turned left again to walk to the paid parking lot. I glanced in the window and saw Jennifer. Not the Jennifer in the song, not the Jennifer in my mind, but the current Jennifer of real time. I stood and watched as she joked with several motorcycle guys, hiked up her skirt and pulled down her bodice towards her waist. I turned and walked away.
Back in my car, I opened up the glove compartment and pulled out the Ed Sheeran CD “Thinking Out Loud” and flung it to the sky where it came to rest on the roof of an old bookstore.
All the way home my mind kept interrupting my driving. I saw Jennifer from years ago, me from years ago, and mixed that with the darn and blasted reality of growing old. Damn.