all sealed up in my most favorite jar of memories are my tanglewood summers. summers that i spent admiring everyone around me, performing concerts that brought me to tears, running round barefoot in the berkshires, and spending all of my money eating at every single restaurant in little lenox. everything was new, caution wasn't totally in my vocabulary yet. time and again, wherever i go, i find myself trying to recreate the excitement and magic of those summers.

slowly i'm learning that i'm not going to. not in that way. and that's exactly why those memories are so special.

{when i need it, i put on the adagietto and let the breath become sucked out of me as i watch teenage versions of craig, nathan, chris, and me dance in slow motion through the field by ozawa hall. that's about as close as i get.}

***

my past few days were spent in the berkshires, grabbing little bits out of my jar, and being so pathetically and wonderfully nostalgic.

i ate a loebwich, my 2007 usual, the "leslie b no sprouts." i finished it with a raspberry jam cookie, the barely baked kind that i've only ever found at loeb's.

i drank a red bull because it was my beverage of choice in 2006, when whiskey was what the higher-ups would have called a grey box violation.

talked a lot of shop. shot the shit. received goosebumps in a percussion ensemble concert.

had a slice of betty's, a berkshire bagel, a bite of soco, and a dip in the stockbridge bowl.

fell prey to hundreds of mosquitos and embraced the inability for t-mobile to work properly anywhere in the vicinity.

i didn't want to leave, no way, i wanted to stay and continue the plunge into that mountain high that makes me so happy.

alas, i've got a berlin-bound plane to catch.

-yeh!