serialized moments #1 (read it first)
But now the past is mixed up with the present, and memories don?t come in isolation. My thoughts intrude on these single moments, and throw layers of sights all around me. My emotional experience is an illusion concocted by tunnel vision. Sometimes I don?t want to see the layers of memories that fill my mind. I want to experience perfect little moments, selected for their potency, their purity.
On the edge of a lake, Kirsten said the tree "looked like the bottom half gave up living, but the top half kept on fighting".
In band, I would stare across rows of faces and into Clarissa?s eyes.
Eating lunch outside, I told Kirsten that my thoughts come in the form of poetry. Her reply danced into my ears.
In the hallway Clarissa signed my yearbook ? a long note filling a page with red. I signed hers. I didn?t know how to say goodbye.
In a high school hallway Kirsten said we?d meet halfway between Missoula and Bellingham someday.
In Clarissa?s room I hugged her for the last time. Wishing that moment would last forever, knowing she had to leave.
In college, Kirsten visited me. We hiked to the top of Sehome hill at night. On the way up, we talked of future plans and hopes ? and remarked on the need for a flashlight on a cloudy night. At the top we named the constellations that spread out below us. On the way down, we talked of future plans and hopes, and the need for a flashlight.
In college, Clarissa visited me. We hiked to the top of Sehome hill with her friend. They threw bits of snow at each other, and parried silly threats back and forth. I tried to laugh along with them. At the top, I was aroused by Clarissa?s presence. This annoyed me, and I wondered why I used to care for her so much. On the way down the hill, we took the long route. They wanted a tour of campus.
These moments, they aren?t memories. They are experiences that I?m building inside me with my exaggerated breath, my tightened eyes, clenched face and forceful visualization. My experience is limited by my physical ability to conjure it up. Solitude diminishes my capacity for emotion. I am stuck with flat happiness, flat despair, flat love, flat hope, flat regret. Until I can open my eyes, that is all I have ? and so I?m grasping blindly outward, searching for my past.
No, I?m not.
But now the past is mixed up with the present, and memories don?t come in isolation. My thoughts intrude on these single moments, and throw layers of sights all around me. My emotional experience is an illusion concocted by tunnel vision. Sometimes I don?t want to see the layers of memories that fill my mind. I want to experience perfect little moments, selected for their potency, their purity.
On the edge of a lake, Kirsten said the tree "looked like the bottom half gave up living, but the top half kept on fighting".
In band, I would stare across rows of faces and into Clarissa?s eyes.
Eating lunch outside, I told Kirsten that my thoughts come in the form of poetry. Her reply danced into my ears.
In the hallway Clarissa signed my yearbook ? a long note filling a page with red. I signed hers. I didn?t know how to say goodbye.
In a high school hallway Kirsten said we?d meet halfway between Missoula and Bellingham someday.
In Clarissa?s room I hugged her for the last time. Wishing that moment would last forever, knowing she had to leave.
In college, Kirsten visited me. We hiked to the top of Sehome hill at night. On the way up, we talked of future plans and hopes ? and remarked on the need for a flashlight on a cloudy night. At the top we named the constellations that spread out below us. On the way down, we talked of future plans and hopes, and the need for a flashlight.
In college, Clarissa visited me. We hiked to the top of Sehome hill with her friend. They threw bits of snow at each other, and parried silly threats back and forth. I tried to laugh along with them. At the top, I was aroused by Clarissa?s presence. This annoyed me, and I wondered why I used to care for her so much. On the way down the hill, we took the long route. They wanted a tour of campus.
These moments, they aren?t memories. They are experiences that I?m building inside me with my exaggerated breath, my tightened eyes, clenched face and forceful visualization. My experience is limited by my physical ability to conjure it up. Solitude diminishes my capacity for emotion. I am stuck with flat happiness, flat despair, flat love, flat hope, flat regret. Until I can open my eyes, that is all I have ? and so I?m grasping blindly outward, searching for my past.
No, I?m not.
Thanks.
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