Inbetween Days

It's just about mid-summer, so it's an appropriate time for me to think about my own intervals. Mine is a heavy transition period: between jobs, between shows, listening to so many people complain about turning 30 when I've been past that for years, waiting on family, and being in the process of figuring out what to do next. As seen from earlier posts, I'm a big fan of nostalgia, especially since I'm transitioning right now. It's good to look back and think happily about recent history. To think of past and present, I'll occupy myself with text analysis of a contextual work in order to practice for the upcoming school year. Here's the opening stanza of a piece that I've liked for many years:

Yesterday I got so old
I felt like I could die
Yesterday I got so old
It made me want to cry

Text analysis: this piece is moving back and forth through time. Notice that the author says "Yesterday I got so old," meaning yesterday was the first day of getting so old that there's such a feeling of grief. There's the disconnect between the time of actual aging and the experience of aging. Feelings of yesterday and feelings of today can be radically different. Regardless, this experience creates a strong emotional response. For me, getting older is a process of letting go, something I hate to do. Youth, friends, possessions, expectations, philosophies, and many other things leave us through time. Getting older is about both growth and loss. Could this piece be a simple matter of acceptance or is there something more? What caused this sudden knowledge of age, and what will the feelings of tomorrow be? A later stanza of this piece shows more grief of loss:

Yesterday I got so scared
I shivered like a child
Yesterday away from you
It froze me deep inside

We're still moving through time while talking about what happened yesterday. The author, while getting older, still feels the extreme fears of youth. Older, wiser, more experienced folk still shiver like children. So some things remain constant through our time. Past and present can still collide violently. We're also introduced to the "you" here. The loss of "you" (whatever that may be, person, place or thing) created this longing, and this loss may have come from choice, or perhaps a series of choices. Other stanzas talk about decisions and longing:

Go on go on
Just walk away
Go on go on
Your choice is made
Go on go on
And disappear
Go on go on
Away from here

Come back come back
Don't walk away
Come back come back
Come back today
Come back come back
Why can't you see
Come back come back
Come back to me

The contrast in these words (go on, come back) all feels familiar to me: fear, longing, looking back, coping with aging, hoping for a greater future, and so on. The remaining stanza helps give clarity and specificity:

And I know I was wrong
When I said it was true
That it couldn't be me and be her
Inbetween without you
Without you

There's a confusing line to follow here: "What I said before about how I couldn't be without you and have 'her' between us and something else: that was wrong." In my mind, the author is saying, it was wrong to think that I needed something from the past with me as I go to something new: I can make the transition to the future without holding on to everything from the past. At this point, I'm left wondering what "her inbetween" refers to. Could this "her" also be the "you?" How else could this piece be interpreted? Are "her" and "you" people or something else? These questions would be the homework assignment. End of lesson plan.

Yes, that's the song by The Cure (a past favorite of mine in 1985, a very good year) somewhat out of order from its original format. I'll happily use The Cure or whatever else for text analysis in my class. We can read Plato, Shakespeare, and Hemingway any time. The classics have their worth, but so do many contemporary works of multiple genres. The past and present both have their place. So does the time in between.