there's something familiar about today

when i woke up this morning, something felt vaguely familiar about the blue, blue sky sky. and the chilly morning air. and my sleepy eyes. and my bare feet on the cold wood floorboards. i don't know exactly what it was. but it made me think of those spring mornings during my senior year of high school when the sky was always a crisp blue in the morning - even though it would warm up later on. and i wore my mom's old beachy cotton sweater and my dad's old courderoys and drove my '86 gray rusty chevy station wagon to school - usually annoyed at my brother for running late.

and everything was green, green, green, even in the early morning. the dewy grass that was too long in our front yard (because one of us hadn't done our chores and mowed the previous weekend). the dew that soaked the toes of my docs and the cuffs of my pants and made everything chilly. the smooshy ground, still moist from the melted snow, swishing under my feet on the way to the car.

listening to the WERS coffeehouse in the car on the way to school, annoyed at tim for being late, annoyed at tim for taking up space and blocking my view of oncoming traffic from the right at wampum corner, annoyed at tim for wanting to change the radio station. (i was often annoyed as a teenager).

forgiving all annoyances when we stopped at cumby's for a french vanilla latte straight from the machine - which was running well if the stream of coffee didn't look like a stream of brown water as it filled your cup (press the button, wait for the spout --- yes!! it's working today!). clearly made with heavy cream, and sweet enough to wake me up for the first two periods of school, tim and i sometimes indulged - on days when getting up for school was particularly difficult.

getting to the center of wrentham and trying to decide - was it faster to go straight to the only traffic light in town and then take a left, or to take the sneaky lefthand veer before the light? or the super-sneaky shortcut behind the town tennis courts , risking a lefthand turn in rush hour traffic next to dunkies.

and then finally getting to our part of the parking lot, and parking with all of my friends. and saying hi. leia's big boat of a black grandma sedan (super kitty), julie's little box of a car, whatever piece of crap emmet was driving at the time, paige's sleek black former parents' car. and paul, adam and shaun pulling up in some little thing blaring german punk music at 7:30 in the morning.

i don't know why, but something about the sky today really reminded me of those mornings.