My Music Journal 2025: August 19, 2025

 

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Time: 5:37 PM
Song: Up from Under
Artist: The Wallflowers
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way to Write On Meeting.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/6abbpzBAVz7zgmc6aEM48j?si=48a4e6b2e2cd4e30

Tonight, we had a writing workout session at Write On. The prompt I wrote on was “What I did over summer break.” I decided to write a journal entry by a high school English teacher.

--

June 5, 202X

I fell in love today.

It happened at the intersection of Fourth Street and Baker. She was walking east on Baker and so was I, until we were both halted by that nefarious blinking red man at the crosswalk. Car engines idled in the closest lane, barely covering the thud of the bass from the speakers inside.

“I think that little guy is a demon,” she said. She wore a flowered sundress, sandals, and had a giant hemp-like purse slung over her shoulder. “He always knows when I am coming and he drives away the little white fellow that lets me pass.”

“Hmm, I’ve always leaned toward him being more of a nymph,” I replied. “Like Puck in Midsummer’s Night Dream. He likes to stop me here and wait for it to rain or just when a long funeral procession is going to cross this way, but none of his pranks are ever that harmful.”

She smiled. Boy, was that gorgeous. I can’t speak to her overall dental hygiene, but this brief glimpse was enough for me. Her smile was perfect. It creased her face enough to indicate that she wasn’t too young for a middle-aged fellow like me. Just right, I thought. She might even have my same birth date.

Cars passed, tires thudding over the heavily repaired blacktop, and neither of us of seemed to have anything more to say. I wanted to ask if she worked near here. Perhaps in an office, or some sort of art studio. I imagined wherever she worked was full of color, bright splashes of gold and purple and turquoise. She would be the centerpiece of the place’s vibrancy. Her smile, her sundress and her sense of humor.

I should have asked her name. I should have looked at the time. It had to be about 10:30 AM. I left the house ten minutes earlier, the walks part of my summer exercise routine while classes were out. Maybe I should have just followed her.

But I didn’t. The nymph disappeared and we both entered the crosswalk, she turned north after the intersection, my only logical route was south. I paused to watch her, but not so long as to freak her out. I can just see it now in big black letters on the front page, “LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER CITED FOR OGLING FEMALES DOWNTOWN.”

I thought about her all the way home. I thought about her while I was working on second draft of my great American novel. I thought about her while the TV blared the Cubs game and the dog slept at my feet. I thought about her until a new worry entered my brain as my head hit the pillow tonight.

What am I going to tell my wife?