Ageless Summer

August 1, 2024

Travelling back in time.

Environmental influence.

Lyrics

CAIN

I’ve returned to the place where I’m from
Where the streets run neatly under a bright blue sky
The heat and sound invade my little room
And I never go out alone
Being in the same place and situation
It makes me feel like I’m the same person
As I was before, as I was before
As I was before, as I was before

Even if you never grow up inside
You can’t slow or stop the passage of time

I’ve returned to the place where I’m from
You’ve never left the purgatory you’re trapped in
Time passes unrelenting
Lamenting your fears, what will you do?
So much I haven’t figured out
Being in the same place and situation
It makes me feel like I’m the same person

I’m standing beneath the trees
The ducks are gone now
What’s left behind has all turned gray¹
The clock is ticking
I wish it didn’t matter
Cause nothing’s linear
I capture and hold it
So frozen in time, it’s remembered

Even if you never grow up inside
You can’t slow or stop the passage of time

Well, it feels like after all
I’ve never changed, yet I’ve changed so much
There’s no way to tell the difference
Until you look back and see Theseus

GABRIEL

You’re fucking delusional drop

Commentary

I returned home after my first year of college, and I had to adapt to living with my parents again, to my old life where I went almost everywhere with them and spent the rest of my time all alone.

They were still as pushy and persistent as ever. I guess I was expecting things to change because the world said I had been alive for longer now, and in that other world people were expecting me to be so much more mature than three years ago. Yet here I was, living the same life that I did back then. My family certainly didn't change the way they viewed me. I began to feel that I could be back in high school and I'd adapt to being a high schooler again--what, was the mystical force of "maturity" gonna kill me if I did? I've always been the same.

I began to question how I ever managed to survive on my own. Then I became angry because I knew I had a good time living on my own, and now my freedom and initiative had been taken away from me.

Still, I tried to move on. I went to the park by myself, and it calmed me down a bit. I thought about how I didn't really age "normally" anyways. In the end, I came to the realization that really, it was the environment around me that dictated how "mature" I appeared. I had no choice but to adapt to whichever capricious way life pulled.

Notes

1 Holden may question where the ducks go in the winter (Salinger, 8), but to me the ducks always seemed to disappear in the summer. This is because the males go into their eclipse plumage as they molt. They are flightless during this time, so their feathers become dull so they can stay hidden (St John).

Works Cited

Salinger, J.D.. The Catcher in the Rye. Little, Brown and Company, 1951.

St. John, Kate. "Mallards in Eclipse." Outside My Window, 7 July 2021,

https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2021/07/07/mallards-in-eclipse/.

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