Days by the Carousel

" Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way."

From childrens' eyes the carousel was as real and enchanted as a mechanical bull was to an aspiring rodeo.  The grating, repetitive music that emitted from its speakers promised of the faraway land towards which their valiant steeds galloped. 

Children never tired of that music that their parents likened to fingernails on chalkboards.  We never tired of watching their gleeful squeals as they mounted their rides, embarking on their journeys to encounter fire-breathing monsters and lumbering giants.  If you watched closely, you could sometimes hear the faint thudding of gigantic footsteps.

Many a lunchtimes ago, the carousel provided background music to our chatter.  Sometimes it was the only thing we heard as we sat together, sharing a silent camaraderie, enclosed in a coccoon to which the outside world was oblivious.  Yet through occasional lulls in talking, we never ceased communicating.

Today I woke up to that carousel music stuck to my head.  Funny, isn't it, how some things never really stay at the back of your mind where you put it? Once again, with the music playing in the background, I am transported back to that time and place, with them by my side.  A family occupies the table next to ours, and I coo over the baby's azure blue eyes.  Someone's overflowing tray clanks as he tries to keep his meatballs safely piled up in his plate, and your eyes twinkle as you repeat that story about me and my tray to my great chagrin and their amusement.  We never tire of it. 

You get up and bounce over to the drinks refill station and come back bearing your signature cheeky grin, and as we try to figure out the ingredients in your soft-drink cocktail, you reach for another piece of french fries.

Through it all, you talk. And complain.  And we nod and offer a few half-hearted replies as you give us blow-by-blow descriptions of things and people and places, and animated conversations ensue as we start picking apart their love triangle with gusto.

As we drift in and out of conversations, he yawns, stretches, and wakes up, threatening immediate need to relieve himself.  We fuss over him, our little terror, bundle him up in the trolley and make a mad dash to the exit and onto the grass where he forgets his immediate physiological need to answer nature's call and scamper around on the grass on his tiny chubby legs.

And we laugh.  We always do.  Time stands still when we are together, and our routines and habits blend into one clear memory on a background of carousel music and mirthful laughter, dubious soft-drink cocktails and too much black pepper on french fries.