Once I lost this thing...
Do things that you've lost stand out really clearly in your mind? I don't mean in an abstract sense. Literally, crap that you've lost. I think the things that bug me most are things I never actually had, but almost did. When I was four, my parents replaced our front steps. When the old ones were ripped out, you could peer under our porch to the actual foundation of the house. It was probably something else, but I swear I remember seeing old china dishes under there and really wanting to go get them. Of course, I wasn't allowed to go under the porch. Then the steps were replaced. Part of me still believes there's a box of old china down there. Later that summer, when I took my first trip to the Pacific Ocean, I liked picking up shells from the beach. Once a wave washed the biggest, most beautiful shell to shore. I ran over and was just about to pick it up when another wave came and washed it back out to sea. I searched for it to no avail. I still want that damn shell.
Those memories are tinged with a sense of unreality, probably because they happened so long ago and I'm not even sure I trust them anymore. The "porch china" memory especially. But maybe that's not all ... maybe the unreality is also related to the near miss of something you really wanted.
Back in January, a group of friends and I were fortunate enough to host a private show by one of my favorite musicians. I was responsible for compiling everyone's setlist wishes, something I had fun with but would probably never volunteer to do again. This meant that I also dispatched the message informing said musician of the various setlist wishes. After the show, I saw that the setlist he'd used was actually my message, printed out, with notations and arrows and little notes scribbled all over it. A friend picked it up, but later that night he let me have it because he thought I deserved it. I didn't take time to do more than glance at it, because I wanted to examine it later at my leisure. It was one of the coolest (to me), most unique things I'd ever had in my possession. I swear I remember putting it in my bag ... and that was the last time I ever saw it. Sigh. The funny thing is, even that has taken on a bit of an unreal quality in my memory. Did it really exist?
Those memories are tinged with a sense of unreality, probably because they happened so long ago and I'm not even sure I trust them anymore. The "porch china" memory especially. But maybe that's not all ... maybe the unreality is also related to the near miss of something you really wanted.
Back in January, a group of friends and I were fortunate enough to host a private show by one of my favorite musicians. I was responsible for compiling everyone's setlist wishes, something I had fun with but would probably never volunteer to do again. This meant that I also dispatched the message informing said musician of the various setlist wishes. After the show, I saw that the setlist he'd used was actually my message, printed out, with notations and arrows and little notes scribbled all over it. A friend picked it up, but later that night he let me have it because he thought I deserved it. I didn't take time to do more than glance at it, because I wanted to examine it later at my leisure. It was one of the coolest (to me), most unique things I'd ever had in my possession. I swear I remember putting it in my bag ... and that was the last time I ever saw it. Sigh. The funny thing is, even that has taken on a bit of an unreal quality in my memory. Did it really exist?
posted by BeeKay at 12:30 AM
1 Comments:
Very interesting. I plan to go look for things I left behind some day. I am thinking of various caches of green amry men I buried under the trees of various places I grew up in.
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