They Can't Take that Away from Me
Four years ago exactly this past Tuesday the 14th, when I was 17 years old and a senior in high school, I put on Calvin Klein Cologne, apricot chapstick I bought from Walgreens, and lit a cranberry candle in the morning at about 5:30 AM. I drove to school in my spitfire, top down, and into the parking lot at 6:30 Am. I took the single yellow rose I bought the night previous and went into the high school cafeteria and hid it behind one of the chairs. I sat and waited until the Mr. D█████ dropped off her daughter in that scary looking oldsmobile, and I ran into the bathroom across from her locker. When she came out I confronted her, and told I her I had something to show her in the cafeteria. I went with her into the cafeteria and gave her the rose. I asked her to be my girlfriend. It was Valentines’s Day 2002. That night, and later than month, I lit that candle every day, I put on that chapstick and used that cologne, even for the night of my part as lead in the high school musical in March. I danced and sang and acted song after song after scene after scene, and in-between scenes of the final amazing performance I hooked up with the girl that said yes back stage. (It was my first kiss). I knew nothing about the world, I knew no politics, I wasn’t as intelligent or as worldly or as experienced or as strong as I am now. I lived in the protective bubble that was high school suburbia, ate the chicken and potatoes my mother made me each night before she tucked me in, and borrowed 7 dollars from my father to go see a movie with my friends.

But God did it feel good. I had the girl in my arms giving me my first kiss, I had an audience of 1000 people behind the curtain waiting to hear me sing, and the classic sports car in the parking with a rebuilt engine, waiting to take me to the cast party in all of its glory. The college applications were out the door. Prom and a summer of fun were ahead. Everything was in order. All my silly teenage dreams had come true.

Fast forward past college: I left for Switzerland last month, I grabbed the bag in the corner of my closet with some chapstick and cologne in it, not realizing or caring or thinking about the significance of the aromas inside, just seeing that it was chapstick and I’ll need chapstick when I’m skiing in the alps, and I’ve run out of cologne at Rutgers, I grabbed it and stuffed it in my suitcase. Wouldn’t ya know, that cranberry candle was in it too.

4 years, 4 days and 21 hours after I religiously used those items, in the privacy of my apartment 3,000 miles away, and even father in spirit from that high school journey, I just felt it all over again. I lit that candle and Like a tidal wave, I heard the audience clapping, my grandfather in the audience shouting my name in pride, I felt the innocent 15 year old girl melt in my arms, her curly hair dangling from her head, staring up at me in awe, and all we had to do was smile at each other to be happy, we were so dumb and naïve, but it felt so good. I remember the night in the spitfire in Ridgewood, I remember my room completely dark with that candle the night before prom, it all comes back to you like a tidal wave, like a time capsule, and what through the years was nostaligia, then depression because you missed it so bad, then forgetting about it and making better or different memories in college; now just smiling – just peace.

We live in a cynical world now, where the hell do I start. Jealousy, Girls are nothing like their 15 year old counterparts, instead of 7 dollars for a movie I think about paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for grad school….

Is ignorance bliss, do looks and status and intelligence really matter. Because there was nothing rational about that feeling – it was just awesome, and we really do get caught up in a race of feelings and desires we can’t possible win.

The smell of the cologne, chapstick and candle gave me pause, as it should. I debated on whether or not to contact that girl Tuesday, it was quite the calculus and I thought of ranting about things that piss me off, but I felt this was more fitting on that anniversary – in short that girl doesn’t think of anything of February 14th anymore - her eyes have glazed over since, her head doesn’t dangle in awe up at me anymore, her hair isn’t as curly anymore. And in too much complexity and emotion to describe succinctly, she left me for another man. Maybe the cynical world got to her, maybe I became cynical.. The reasons are petty. In my heart I’ll never forget her and the way we were, and when I’m married with someone else I’d say the exact same thing. And in my heart, on the 14th, I knew what I would say if I did contact her, I would recite the lines from my solo in that musical four years ago. There she was, a member of the chorus in the wings of the theater melting as she watched me sing the classical lines to my lead counterpart, lines I couldn’t possible understand until having lived through them.

“The Way you Hold your Hat
The way you sip your Tea
The memory of all that
No, no they can’t take that away from me
The way your smile just beams
The way you sing of key
The way you haunt my dreams
No no they can’t take that away from Me
We may never never meet again on that bumpy road to love
Still I’ll always always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife
The way we danced til three
The way you changed my life
No, no they can’t take that away from me
No, they can’t take that away from me…”

I guess it’s an analogy for all of life. There I was, a 17 year old dumb and naïve teenager, oh so happy, singing those incredibly, simple, sad and excruciatingly lovely lines about loss, as good as an actor as I think I was, I had no idea what they meant until now. And there is the scent of the chapstick bringing the memory of being on stage back. All the memories and people and moments blend together, and I begin to understand what time means. As I look over those lines and how their meaning has changed a tear comes to my eye…

NJO: Originally posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

Illiteracy Count: 22

1. spitfire
2. 6:30 Am
3. the Mr. D█████
4. Mr. D█████ dropped off her daughter
5. Valentines's
6. oldsmobile
7. later than month
8. . (It was my first kiss).
9. car in the parking with
10. and Like a tidal wave
11. spitfire
12. I remember my room... [Badly constructed run-on sentence]
13. nostaligia
14. We live in a cynical world now, where the hell do I start.
15. Jealousy, Girls are [Also just a badly constructed sentence]
16. Is ignorance bliss, do looks... [Question mark?]
17. can't possible win
18. became cynical.. [Period or ellipsis?]
19. couldn't possible understand
20. way you sing of key
21. those incredibly, simple,
22. about loss, as good an actor [Period after "loss", new sentence, capital letter]