02/25/2025
The interesting thing about memory is that it operates in space time just like parallel timelines. Our brains code habit just as they code the passage of time. When you pick up where you left off you go back in time.
I haven't smoked a cigarette in months and it has been 14 months since I drank pop. But sitting here in a parking lot on a sunny-warm but breezy-chilly February day, smoking a menthol in the driver seat of my car and sipping a can of Mt. Dew, I feel 22 years old again. I suddenly remembered you. Your curly black hair, your soft face. Your beautiful smile and bright playful eyes. We were sitting outside in the cold, smoking, waiting for our shift to start. Planning on doing witchy things after work...
..And then a crow cawed and brought me back to the present. And I remembered...you are now a memory because you have been dead for years now...
..And for a brief moment I am both 22 and 37, young and restless, and tired and sad. And this crow keeps cawing and I know we are still there, and I am still here at the same time. And it would be just like you to swoop in as a beautiful black bird and bitch and nitter at me and then fly away and leave me, you marvelous drama queen. You were always just out of reach to those of us trying to keep you here.
And that is the magic of memory. We can summon whatever timeline we want with a simple item. A stone, a stick, or a feather. A touch or a glance. A single note can recall a melody you haven't heard in years. We loved each other fiercely for 9 months. And loss and pain separated us slowly and permanently over a dozen more years. But in the trail of smoke and the caw of a crow there you are, here I am, and so here we still are together. And I am still gonna do witchy s**t with you after work, bitch.
