Personal: Countdown Day 7: Four Memories
Day 1 - Ten random facts about yourself
Day 2 - Nine things you do everyday
Day 3 - Eight things that annoy you
Day 4 - Seven fears/phobias
Day 5 - Six songs that you're addicted to
Day 6 - Five things you can't live without
Day 7 - Four memories you won't forget
Day 8 - Three words you can't go a day without
Day 9 - Two things you wish you could do
Day 10 - One person you can trust
Day 7 - Four memories you won't forget
Oh, this is a tough one. I have terrible memory, especially if I don't write something done (to do lists, yeah, but also memories of things that have happened, conversations, important details about friendships, etc.). There are whole chunks of 2007 - 2014 I feel like I've lost because I wasn't blogging as much during grad school. (And also, crazy brain, particularly while I was in Michigan, and unmedicated, and pretty sure the sun was never going to return.) Plus memories come and go.
So, four memories I haven't forgotten at this moment, in no particular, but all of which are particularly vivid.
1. Standing in Mom's ICU room with my dad, J, and a couple of my siblings, watching the machines keep Mom alive. Watching the machines turn off, one by one, wires and buttons, plastic and electricity, metal bits, all these unimportant things, and each one, a piece of her gone. She breathed on her own, one last time, and the sound she made. It was like we could see her leave, and then there was just a body, and all those tears, and nothing. I'd been called home so many times over the years, said good-bye only to have her live. This was not that. This was the end.
2. I'm fourteen, and just stupid in love with J. His sister's friends are adults, like her, and they're in a band, and we're watching practice. We go for a walk at dusk, and after the sun has gone behind the trees, we stop. There's a rowboat for awhile, under the stars, water splashing, soaking the bottom of my jeans. The sky is deep, dark blue, all stars, no moon. We kiss, sitting on the hood of an old car, and the band covers Live's "Lightning Crashes".
3. It was late when I landed in Seattle, dark, and I was exhausted. Spring break, but I'd been interviewing with firms, had little rest. I wasn't stressed about the interview in Redmond, I already had an offer from my first choice firm, but I walked outside the airport, and the air was so crisp and cool. It felt different. My driver was quiet, left me in peace, and I couldn't stop staring at the trees, the mountains, the moon. I fell in love with the Seattle area that trip, and the summer I worked out there.
4. It's my first Wiscon, and I'm hanging out with friends I've either never met in person before or only get to rarely see. We're laughing, it's wonderful, we're having so much fun. The auction is ridiculous, hilarious, and I'm grinning at something one of my friends has said when I look up, across the room, and there's a woman. She's gorgeous, all dark shiny hair and such a nice grin and her outfit is casual sexy as hell, and she has a Faith tattoo. I recognize it even at a distance.
And then, after the auction, I'm walking with a friend, and the woman is right there, friendly and smiling and wonderful, and I can tell her how awesome her tattoo is, and how her outfit is very Faith, and -- wait. I know her. We spend the rest of the night talking and drinking. She ends up being one of my best friends, and such an important part of my life for many years.
That is the story of how I spotted nikitangel across a crowded room at a feminist convention without knowing it was her, even though we'd already become friends online. It makes me smile to this day.
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/396622.html with
comments. Reply here or there.