Memories change
11/24 2020
Memories change as people whistle different tunes: as the neighbor goes out for a walk, as the first snow in a decade falls in heavy snowflakes on tin roofs, or any other scenario when you can imagine that familiar breeze blow. She walks past the bar with her gray hair cut short. An icy wind blows without bothering her eyes nor nose. The air is free from any smell, except for that familiar faint burning. Even in the first greeting there is sadness now.
She could return to the land of the fairy. Where gnomes perform parlor tricks by folding leftover napkins, and ducks play chess with their beaks against beavers with their callous-filled elbows. Where night is day and the sun only rises for those with ashen skin. While her parents might hug her when she arrives, it won't be the same.
Weeks go by and everyday fears of old get replaced by new ones. Rain enters through faulty windows and the sky eventually turns that familiar gray. The sun peeks through sometimes and evaporates any leftover rain; yet, her fear, her dreams? In her memories they seem so distant, so surreal. In the present the homeless guitarist screams at her when she passes hoping not only for a coin or two, but something more somber indeed. Rain, obviously, doesn't dry up in one day.
Along empty beaches and empty memories, as the wind brushes her hair over her face, a thought hits her. I am here. I am home. I am in the realm of unlimited potential. I am in the world of my dreams. The wind blows warm over her face and her linen tunic waves in its rhythm. Memories get filled up with empty ideas and pictures of smells and the feeling of hair in your eyes on that perfect day.
Even in the last goodbyes - amidst all the small talk in the terminal - there is bittersweet solace in every word. Among the sea of sunbathed mustached wolves they reckon the right thing to say is 'let her fend for herself'. Or - perhaps more sympathetically - as she would say: 'friends to be made'. If any of them are to be right it seems a reconciliation needs to be made. Her mother's hair smelled of her usual shampoo as she hugged her. Lavender, or saudade. They're both the same. She must've brought it along, that little of piece of home that remains.