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The other day I was listening to a song, Maroon 5’s Harder to Breathe and suddenly I was on Arlington Blvd between 7 Corners and the Clarendon exits. I had a clear visual of the surrounding environment. I felt that if I walked out of the house I could just get into the car and be there in a matter of minutes.
It’s a hard feeling to shake sometimes. My inner sense of geography stretches wide and random places cities like Woodbridge, Fairfax, or Silver Spring and the NJ Turnpike seem as close as they ever were. (If I step outside I’ll see… Ashburn? Reston? Arlington? Huntington?) In reality if I stepped outside I’d have a view of the capitol building and and that overwhelming sense of nearness stretches out to a distant, dizzying pinpoint.
And then the feeling passes…
On Wednesday I listened to an entire genre on my iPod. It was all music from 1995/1996. It was all so long ago and yet so near. It was unsettling. That period of my life was unsettling and while I like the music from that era, I also find that I don’t necessarily enjoy being transported to a much darker part of my past.
And I wonder, is this what aging is like? When 10 years ago doesn’t seem so long ago? When 20 years ago doesn’t even seem that long ago? When you remember with great detail parts of your early childhood only to have that startling realization you’re someone’s parent and your childhood is long, long gone.
I think winter is partially to blame for shifting mental perspectives. It’s cold, I’m cold, I’ve been inside for days and it feels like it won’t end fast enough. Those lucky enough to further south know that winter will be ending in the next month or so. Here I hope that by Easter we might be experiencing warm weather. Then again, it’s all perspective. Last March when I arrived, 35 was freezing to me after having left warm, springy Virginia. Right now, I’d run outside in sandals and shorts (for about 1 minute) if it were 35 outside.
And so I wait, anxiously, for a break in the weather and that smell in the air that says spring IS coming. (Isn’t it?)