I was sitting at a rather unforgiving picnic table large enough to have its own zip code. It was metal; long ago they gave up providing wood tables for school courtyards. I was watching the stuff of a dozen teenagers as they trotted off to their various thespian competition rooms. I was in charge of making sure that old lunches and flat sofa did not get up and walk away. As they rushed back to the table I felt a split in time.
I could sense their enthusiasm, celebration of high scores and feelings of indignation at having won low scores. They were laughing, joking, and complaining about everything in their day – including me. These are the high school moments where everything is alive! These are the moments that yearbooks will struggle for years and years to capture. Then – I felt like a science fiction movie had taken over. This very same table was now not peopled with teenagers; it was peopled by adults – a bunch of twenty-somethings sitting now in a cozy pretentious bar on a cold sweatered night in a big city – – sipping cocktails and reminiscing . A fog was circling me and the table.
They weren’t feeling it then but – – sometime soon – – caps and gowns were going to be waiting for them and this delicious vital time of high school would be ending. I know that that is several months away and the goal is to live and work in the moment but still . . It is a bit pathetic, I know, but the district thespian competition begins an ugly series of “lasts” for me. “This will be the LAST thespian competition for seniors. It is the LAST car ride they will have to Thespians. This will be the LAST un-approved quick trip to Starbucks during districts.” And so on. How I get stuck into these ridiculous ruts, I do not know.
For a moment, I wanted to join all them for cocktails in that pretentious bar of the future. I want to see their transformation. I wanted to see if I did no harm – and, god willing, helped along the way. It is as if I could see some five years ahead of them, but like some cheesier movie, I was not allowed to talk if this because I would disturb be the time space continuum.
I keep quiet. They keep growing. It is the way.