Look Forward

I was able to send the file of Main Street to my cover designer. She is intrigued by the story. I am looking forward to working with Teddi again and always learning more. I'm not sure what forces converged yesterday forcing me to feel pinned down. It reminded me of the marine layer when I was in Long Beach, California almost two years ago, but without the saline benefit.
I think of the past year, what was happening in 2012. I feel it was ages and eons ago. I look at dates sensing a detachment. I can hardly believe it was only a year ago. On the radio last evening two songs from the summer of 1972 created that year closer in my mind than last year.
I then thought of the beginning of ninth grade in 1975. Homeroom I sat behind the not yet boyfriend of the next two years. My friend Dawna encouraged me to ask him to Sadie Hawkins Dance and the rest they say is history. That was our first and last car date that school year. We wrote notes and kissed one kiss every day before he had to catch his bus. I was lost for that minute as teens rushed past us, ignoring our rather innocent moment, compared to other couples groping.
September, though, we hadn't hardly noticed each other. At least, I just knew him as a great cartoonist. We had been only in sixth grade class together and his artistic abilities surpassed any we had seen in our short lives at West Middlesex in our peers. That was pretty cool. He had the feathered back dark hair I was finding attractive and his black eyes portrayed a deepness my fourteen year old heart loved. But until Dawna suggested him, I didn't think about dating him.
In ninth grade most girls, at least then, are somewhat in love with the idea of being in love. An attractive package helps, but I like to think I searched for the heart. Of course, agreeing to like the girl back increases the "love."
I listened to a classic rock station last evening with Alice Cooper hosting, one of those national radio shows. I did think of a almost fifteen year old boy, but I am overjoyed I have my husband of thirty one years. Sure we didn't share my formative years discovering the first blooms of love, but our love has developed deeper than any teen age fancy could imagine.  I was eighteen when I met my husband to be in September four years later.
I think of our Septembers together. The first one as married couple in Connecticut, we roamed as much as we could between his cruises on the submarine, the Archer Fish. He taught me to drive a stick shift after we bought our first car, a Ford Escort. I joked, "If we survived that without divorcing, we can survive anything." Like that first love of fourteen, I had no idea what life held. We have survived greater things than stick shift driving.
All those Septembers seem clearer than last September. I have pushed it out of my mind as I lean into more pleasant future. One thing we hold on to at any age, if we can, is hope. We hope for better things or if pleasant that it will continue. I look forward to remembering this September now with fondness.