What I Dream - Melody Cryns

I never thought it would happen to me – and I haven’t been able to get it off my mind since Sunday, right before I went to the concert. When I heard someone playing guitar and singing Beatles songs out by the pool where I live. I’ve been around for 51 years and never once had I experienced this.

I was just taking the dog for a walk, and when I heard the guitar music and the singing, nothing spectacular, yet so beautiful, I had to stop and check it out.

So I peered through the wire gate of the pool and I saw that guy sitting there playing guitar and singing, his guitar chords reverberating through the complex and he looked so young, and that big smile on his face practically dazzled me. He was young, I thought, hearing him sing, and then I yelled, “Know any more Beatles songs?”

He smiled and waved at me and immediately started playing, “Hey Jude” and next thing you know, I was singing along from across the pool, not caring who heard me or who didn’t hear me – and I’m sure too many people must’ve heard us since the pool is kinda in the middle of the apartment complex.

So young, I thought—just as I’d thought so many times when I’d meet a gorgeous younger man who was way out of my league – finding myself wishing I was younger and thinner, and that I was as fit as those people I work out with in the fitness room – me trudging away at my 3.1 mile-per-hour pace on the elliptical machine while burly muscular men grunt and lift weights and spry young women and men literally run on the treadmill machines, going faster and faster.

But I am who I am, that’s all there is to it, and although I’ve lost close to 28 pounds, it’s all I can do to get under 200 pounds, while others fight to lose that last five pounds to 110. But I feel as if I’ve accomplished this huge feat, just to say I’m a size 16 now and that I don’t have to wear Double X shirts anymore.

All those weird thoughts ran through my mind as I peered through the fence at this beautiful man singing and playing guitar, feeling as if he was serenading to me directly, wooing me…when actually he was just sitting there chilling and playin’ guitar on a beautiful sunny spring day. Can’t blame him for that. I wanted to get closer to him, but one part of me was afraid. I felt giddish, like a kid – and when I looked at the guy, I felt as if I could see inside his soul, like he’d opened it up just for me.

Finally, the dog made the decision for me. She became impatient sitting there while I sang, so she managed to squeeze through the fence to the other side into the pool area, and she sat there staring up at me, and all I could do was let go of the leash and walk all the way around to where the gate opened to get the dog. A young guy lying by the pool had grabbed her leash for me so she wouldn’t run off too far – the same guy that clapped for me and the guy when we both sang Hey Jude, hehe!

When I walked into the pool area, the guitar singing man waved and said, “Come over and jam with me!”

So I took a deep breath and walked over there. And I saw that the man I had seen as golden and all shiny actually had more than a few wrinkles and gray hair. I guessed he was Philiphino although I have to admit I’m not good at guessing people’s nationalities.

He smiled that big winning smile and said, “Come here, sit down,” and suddenly began strumming John Lennon’s Imagine. Of course I recognized the song right away and began to softly sing.

“Beautiful!” the man said. Then he held out his hand to me, “I’m Noah, and I’m here visiting my daughter over there!”

He pointed to his daughter, a beautiful young girl whom I’d ironically met the day before when me and the kids barbecued by the pool.

“Cool.” I introduced myself as well and shook his hand, which felt so warm and inviting. It didn’t matter one single bit what he looked like on the outside – all I could see was what was on the inside, a warm, young, kind soul.

And when I said, “You know, I was seven when they arrived, the Beatles, you know…and…”

Noah smiled. “And I was 13!”

Okay, now I knew he could see into my soul. He understood.