Who sat in the next chair?
Woke up this morning, and you were on my mind. Whew! Not only is that one a perfect earworm for Wednesday, but it reflects how my day began.
To clarify, the you refers to the group, rather than the individual. I tend to get my eyes open earlier than the rest of the family (dog excepted), and staying in bed isn’t an option. Instead, the overactive imagination kicks in. Today, my rambling mood took me back to a classroom, long ago; I then tried to populate the desks around me.
In the early times, UPEI had a downtown campus, where the Music faculty was quarantined from the rest of the university community. A separate peace. A world of our own. A basement in the old PWC building, where we could annoy ourselves.
We were few in number, compared to other faculties. And there’s the rub; I’m unable to complete my imaginary census of those who would have been present for the 8:30 a.m. classes in Music History. My textbooks are still around here, somewhere, in case I need to review the bio of Palestrina. We sat, in concentric circles, a group of less than twenty. And I can’t remember them all.
Like on a TV show, I should “call a friend”. But how would I explain the question? Where is the why? Do the rest of you (speaking in general, rather than specific) wake up and try to remember who was in your class, long ago? What question digs into your psyche when you’ve made your preemptive strike on the alarm clock?
