On spinning on that dizzy edge
show me, show me, show me
It’s dusk on Friday night and we’re sitting on our folding chairs several feet behind the long white tent. We’re waiting for the next act to show up on the stage in the center of the Franklin Common. “Let’s go check it out,” I said, “We have no plans tonight.” Only 80’s music could get us out of our air conditioning on a cloudy, muggy 5th of July to sit under the maple trees swatting away the mosquitos.
Earlier in the day, we started talking about our Saturday night menu. Our foodie friends are joining us for dinner and fireworks at 10pm and staying over in the guest bedroom. One of my girlfriends sent me a vegetable ceviche recipe in text, the perfect pairing to the spiced pork chops we’re planing to grill. I start to count the ingredients in my head: avocado, yellow pepper, edamame, heirloom tomatoes, nectarines, lime zest, lime juice, fresh corn, and jalapeno. Cilantro.
“I saw this thing on Instagram today,” says my spouse Janyce. “This doctor saved the life of a preemie baby boy...” She continues telling her story but my mind wanders a bit as I look around at the banner draped booths, the blinking lights, the powder blue dumbo elephants spinning slowly around in the air, young dads in baseball hats clutching their kids beside them in the cramped seat.
“Then fast forward 30 years,” she says. “Same doctor gets in a car crash, and is pinned in the car. Guess who the paramedic was?”
“Really?” I say. “Is that even true?”
“Probably not,” she says.
The dance floor on the grass in front of the stage is filling up with little kids bouncing up and down in pink shorts and pastel t-shirts the color of banana sherbet and lime popsicles. Screams carry over the air to us from the tilt-a-whirl.
I love this town carnival even though my own boys are long grown and I no longer have a small child’s hand to hold. For years, the fourth of July weekend made me ache with longing to go back and relive those days again, hot summer nights walking to the high school field with our beach chair slung over our shoulder, passing the lanky tiger lilies glowing in the twilight, the black woods blinking with fireflies. Now I scroll through Instagram instead and smile at my son’s latest story. He’s in a park much like we are now, but in Cincinnati. His camera scans the bandstand to his smiling girlfriend, to an abrupt switch of cocktails and a farm-to-table plate of glistening greens.
Janyce and I contentedly savor our soft serve cones. Hers is vanilla with rainbow sprinkles, mine is a chocolate vanilla twist. The air is thick and the sky is heavy, threatening rain.
And then the band begins.
“No way!” I say, slapping my hand on her leg. “I have to show the boys.” The very first song is Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence. When the kids were in high school, I would play this song in the car on our way to dropping them off in the morning. Both teens, uncombed hair and barely awake, groaning in the back seat, “Again, mom? We have to hear this again?” I send the short video to both of them with a laughing face emoji. The three dots are instant on my iphone from my son in the park many states away.
“There’s no way hahaha,” he says. “They sound pretty good too. The common leveled up a bit it looks like.”
My other son is right behind him. He sends me two crying laughing emojis. “That’s hysterical,” he says. “I love that!”
The band plays for over an hour. Til Tuesday, The Cure, David Bowie, The GoGos, Howard Jones, Madonna. And we realize that here we are, in a small town, on a holiday weekend, the two of us empty nesters lounging in the muggy night air, singing along to every song.
Spinning on that dizzy edge
Kissed her face and kissed her head
Dreamed of all the different ways
I had to make her glow
"Why are you so far away?" she said
"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you
That I'm in love with you?"
You
Soft and lonely
You
Lost and lonely
You
Just like heaven
❤️👍🏻