“That Was Last Weekend”

I read the new Ben Folds book, I Dream about Lightning Bugs, and discussed it with friends over German beers in a warm living room with art on the wall. The author, although talking about music, argues that there is no such thing as repetition.

There is only insistence.

So no, I cannot go with you next weekend to the university fair. That was last weekend. And while I appreciate that these are different universities, different campuses, different cities and, undeniably, it will be a different experience, last weekend, as we walked across the clichéd leafy campus dreaming of mahogany and tweed was as singular as it was memorable. Hoods drawn, hats pulled down, water resistant boots laced up, and at least my heart was big and filled with the joy of the everyday and the mundane.

Making memories.

Please know, nostalgia will not be making an appearance this weekend. We will not be, once again, sharing a laugh about the tour guide who cannot pronounce “library”, or commenting about the other parents on the tour who look so much older than us, we think, dejected in their beaten down affect and bad fashion. I will not be insisting on the importance of that weekend, repeating and re-living its moments with the painted-on grin of an aged rockstar, playing the single hit he wrote at age twenty-one night after night with an indifferent band to an aged audience intoxicated on sentimentality.

If you’re up for new experiences, I’m all in.

Andrew Scott lives, writes and makes music in Toronto, Canada.