Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. We met in English class in my senior year at Big Spring High School.
She sat across
the classroom from me, and I admired her from afar for most of the school year
– too timid and unsure of myself to approach her. She had straw-colored hair,
which billowed about her face in a meticulously styled cloud, and shockingly
clear blue eyes the shade of the West Texas sky as it darkens into early
evening.
It took me most
of that year to drum up the courage to ask her out, and I was shocked and
bewildered when she accepted. By graduation, she was wearing my senior ring –
taped heavily to fit on her slender finger. It meant, in the customs of the
day, that we were “going steady.”
As we sat with
our senior classmates on the field of Memorial Stadium on that May night in
1969, sweating in our graduation robes, she was wearing that ring. I sat tall
and proud, still amazed that she had chosen me.
We spent that
night together – also a custom of the time for graduating seniors – driving
around town, chatting merrily with other couples and spending a few hours in a
quiet spot on Signal Mountain east of town in a profound, but completely
innocent, interlude. At sunrise, we attended a senior breakfast at a
classmate’s home, and I dropped her off at her parents’ house.
I was a clumsy,
inexperienced and largely befuddled boyfriend so it’s not surprising the
relationship lasted only a few weeks into that summer. She was going to Baylor
in the fall, and I was fated to remain in Big Spring to attend community
college. We both knew it was impossible. Fate, as they say, is inexorable, and
we parted to go our separate ways. My heart was broken.
In September of
that year, Crosby, Stills & Nash released “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” – a song
Stephen Stills wrote for Judy Collins. Ever since, I have associated the song
with my own Sweet Judy Blues Eyes.
Is there anything
sweeter, more tender, more excruciatingly painful than first love?
It's getting to
the point where I'm no fun anymore.
I am sorry.
Sometimes it
hurts so badly I must cry out loud.
I am lonely.
I am yours, you
are mine, you are what you are.
You make it
hard.
Remember what
we've said and done and felt about each other.
Oh, babe, have
mercy.
Don't let the
past remind us of what we are not now.
No comments:
Post a Comment