Paper writing tonight. Hurray. I'm not sure how late I'm going to stay up, but I know I'm not going to enjoy class tomorrow morning. Not to mention every minute I spend writing in this blog, however therapeutic, is another minute I'm going to be staying up. I don't mind so much, I guess. I feel like these words need to come out first anyway. Otherwise I won't be able to focus.
I love the word remember. There's something distinctly... indescribable about words and ideas pertaining to memory. Nostalgia. Remembering...
I remember a red ball on green carpet. I can construct the rest of the image because I know the room from more recent memories, but the image with the ball is just a red ball and green carpet. Nothing else. I remember the way my Grammie's pearl and gold jewelry used to feel in my fingers when I played with it while she read to me. I remember the way it hung from her neck and how the tiny, hard links flowed like liquid in my palm. I remember the first time I swore at Paul. I screamed "Fuck you!" He had locked me on the other side of the gate leading to the beach. The wood was hot in the sunlight and we would walk where the handrails cast their shadows and cooled the planks enough to stand on. I remember the first time he swore at me too.
I remember being impetuous and stupid. I remember making Momma mad. I remember the time I wrote about my family for class and cried because no one in the world could ever love me the way they do. I remember the way Daddy's beard would scratch my lips when I kissed him, welcoming him home from the paper mill. He smelled like the mill and beer. I remember loving that smell. I remember the first girl I thought was pretty. I remember her eyes. They were large and dark and liquid and I liked how her nose separated them.
I remember talking to Jesus like he was my friend. I told him about my day. I remember not being able to talk about the same with my parents, only ever saying "It was okay." I remember a purple cup, shaped like a dinosaur with a well-chewed straw that I would sip ginger ale from when I was sick. I remember throwing up a lot.
I remember that I didn't cry when Shane died, even when Momma cried. I remember that it was Christmas Eve and I had just opened my brother's present for me. It was a yellow and blue toy submarine. I remember the way my Momma's hair smelled when she told me. "Honey, Shane's passed away." I was in the seventh grade. I remember thinking that people my age shouldn't die. I only remember one image of his face before the chemotherapy. Before he couldn't walk anymore. Before the steroids made him fat. He has a nice smile in that memory. Most of all, I remember being mean to him because he was different. Back before we knew he was sick. I remember telling him I wasn't his friend. I cried when I remembered that.
The past is a glorious thing. It can't exist outside of our minds because it can't record itself, yet even when we try to destroy it, it persists inside us. It is almost a parasite. Americans cry for forward movement. We beg for progress and change. We strive and strive for the future, but in the end, with our dying breath, we wish for the past. That things were like they used to be. That we could have done something different. What are we to do? I'm so very confused.
