I read somewhere about the power of remembering all the good moods of before and holding them close to now as gaining some sort of power over life. That doing so isn’t just some ridiculous exercise, that everything that we experience is not a reaction, but a chosen action before we even encounter the catalyst. That we chose to feel bad or we choose to feel good, before the problem even comes our way.
A feeling is what we can associate with something good or less than, and to be in a good way now, we have to remember how we successfully were in a good way before. My goal for today is to dip my fingers in the following times and blow them out into the air…to see if they catch:
When Jon and I sat in the college chapel, his girlfriend between us, and she never trusted me because he was my best friend, and that male soprano began to sing, and I didn’t want to laugh, but I could feel him shaking as he tried not to, and I was shaking and after that she didn’t talk to us for three days.
The snowfall where my ex-steady and I stomped around on his birthday, and no one in the world was on the streets, and I had on those ridiculous snow-moon-boots and it felt like the end of the earth and I wasn’t even cold.
At the Keilkookie Crawfish Cookout every summer of elementary school, before we moved away, and Rachel and I stole away from our parents and their plastic cups of wine, and we took off our shoes the moment their backs were turned, and we slipped on rocks and green glass, and she fell into the water and pushed me in when I tried to help her out.
The first night I spent in my second New York apartment.
The day that everyone came over to our pool and my parents didn’t even blink, even when we tread water onto every panel of hardwood on the first floor and left the lights on all night long.
The month before graduating from boarding school, on gifted and borrowed time, not filling out off-campus passes, violating dress code and hanging our limbs from the windows of every car in sight.
When at Camp Tapawingo, the girls in the Cherokee cabin let me hang out with them, even though they were in seventh grade and I was in fourth, and they were so pretty and they were so mature and they put makeup on me and said they wished they could have a little sister just like me and I had never felt such a part of something so important in my entire life.
The few minutes when I thought I had found my long-lost cat after we got that territorial new dog, before I saw the markings on her paws which showed me what I didn’t want to know; that it was not her.
The drive between Sharon and Great Barrington, especially those two lone trees at the top of that field before Lakeville, when all the bales of hay are rolled, and the road winds every five seconds.
When my goddaughter thought a nose was a bottle, the best hostel under all the palm trees in Australia, the sky at eight PM, when the best laid plans lay something, and when timing, if nothing else, is just right…
A feeling is what we can associate with something good or less than, and to be in a good way now, we have to remember how we successfully were in a good way before. My goal for today is to dip my fingers in the following times and blow them out into the air…to see if they catch:
When Jon and I sat in the college chapel, his girlfriend between us, and she never trusted me because he was my best friend, and that male soprano began to sing, and I didn’t want to laugh, but I could feel him shaking as he tried not to, and I was shaking and after that she didn’t talk to us for three days.
The snowfall where my ex-steady and I stomped around on his birthday, and no one in the world was on the streets, and I had on those ridiculous snow-moon-boots and it felt like the end of the earth and I wasn’t even cold.
At the Keilkookie Crawfish Cookout every summer of elementary school, before we moved away, and Rachel and I stole away from our parents and their plastic cups of wine, and we took off our shoes the moment their backs were turned, and we slipped on rocks and green glass, and she fell into the water and pushed me in when I tried to help her out.
The first night I spent in my second New York apartment.
The day that everyone came over to our pool and my parents didn’t even blink, even when we tread water onto every panel of hardwood on the first floor and left the lights on all night long.
The month before graduating from boarding school, on gifted and borrowed time, not filling out off-campus passes, violating dress code and hanging our limbs from the windows of every car in sight.
When at Camp Tapawingo, the girls in the Cherokee cabin let me hang out with them, even though they were in seventh grade and I was in fourth, and they were so pretty and they were so mature and they put makeup on me and said they wished they could have a little sister just like me and I had never felt such a part of something so important in my entire life.
The few minutes when I thought I had found my long-lost cat after we got that territorial new dog, before I saw the markings on her paws which showed me what I didn’t want to know; that it was not her.
The drive between Sharon and Great Barrington, especially those two lone trees at the top of that field before Lakeville, when all the bales of hay are rolled, and the road winds every five seconds.
When my goddaughter thought a nose was a bottle, the best hostel under all the palm trees in Australia, the sky at eight PM, when the best laid plans lay something, and when timing, if nothing else, is just right…
10 comments:
puttin me in a good mood, this is
Have you been hanging out with Peter Pan again? Think happy thoughts!
"The snowfall where my ex-steady and I stomped around on his birthday, and no one in the world was on the streets, and I had on those ridiculous snow-moon-boots and it felt like the end of the earth and I wasn’t even cold."
Love that. It's great. And thanks for making me want to me sure to do that this coming winter.
Hey, thanks for stopping by my site! I love your writing.
I grew up going to crawfish boils all of the time..are you also from the Deep South?
Beautiful and haunting memories almost, thanks for the wonderful post and I hope with all the beauty you've hung up here some of it blows back your way soon.
...that time when I watched a bitch who had just pushed me fall flat on her ass on a new york sidewalk...
Very nice. Thanks for sharing those great moments with us.
It's amazing how paths can almost touch, early on, then actually intersect at a later point in time. As if it were in the cards all along.
For you see, I too attended camp just across the lake from yours. While "Camp Tapawino" was intended to be the "brother" camp, our only activities were jostling our Boones-Farm inebriated counselors to make sure they were still alive, and periodically warming ourselves by the 55-gallon fire drum.
And here we are, years removed, visiting each other's blogs and completing the circuit.
Your writing style is refreshing and in the moment. Thanks for your visit to MY humble abode. It's nice to meet you, k.
that is awesome, i keep memories like that close to me, but i think of them only when i am reminded somehow.
for me, in those memories, i can 'see' right in that moment that i will remember that event forever. and i feel so good knowing that i'm experiencing something special about life.
I like this. I may need to catalog some of my memories in this fashion.
Your mention of "the chapel" in one of your memories-- did you go to Duke? Mr. Broady did, and we lived in Durham for a few years while he was there. Godawlmighty I love that town! (and JJ Redick).
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