The Music in my Life
Tonight, I met Gary, the check out clerk at Safeway.
I pushed the cart back though the snowy parking lot. It was a quarter to one in the morning, freezing and cold. Gary could get sick running around this soggy parking lot, hot sweat freezing on contact with the air while the noises of yet another Thirsty Thursday resonated from the bar across the street. I pushed the cart back to keep Gary out of this cold if only for one less minute, one less cart for an older man to chase down in the middle of a rainy, snowy night.
"Christmas music play this early every year?" I had started to make small talk as I typed a fake Safeway member number into the pad in front of me. I use this one every time. If they stopped to notice, they could probably tell my real name isn't "Hank Henry" though. "Doesn't it drive you crazy?"
"Some of it... yes. They started before Thanksgiving this year. It's just..." I saw that light in his eye, mixed with a little quiet sadness, "... none of them are really about Christmas."
"I know exactly what you mean." Gary and I had the same best friend.
He smiled back at me, confirmed what I already knew with a few words, and added, "And he's made all the difference in my life."
If memories cannot be counted on as an accurate representation of reality but only our distorted perception of it only further distorted by time... how can we be merely the sum of our existence? If I "am" my own memories, I am only a figment of my own imagination. If the distant past is as malleable as the future, it should be possible to escape any past circumstances that supposedly hinder me. We have all of the ingredients - the grace, the freedom - what do you want to make? Every day is a new chance to recreate ourselves.
I loved today, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
I pushed the cart back though the snowy parking lot. It was a quarter to one in the morning, freezing and cold. Gary could get sick running around this soggy parking lot, hot sweat freezing on contact with the air while the noises of yet another Thirsty Thursday resonated from the bar across the street. I pushed the cart back to keep Gary out of this cold if only for one less minute, one less cart for an older man to chase down in the middle of a rainy, snowy night.
"Christmas music play this early every year?" I had started to make small talk as I typed a fake Safeway member number into the pad in front of me. I use this one every time. If they stopped to notice, they could probably tell my real name isn't "Hank Henry" though. "Doesn't it drive you crazy?"
"Some of it... yes. They started before Thanksgiving this year. It's just..." I saw that light in his eye, mixed with a little quiet sadness, "... none of them are really about Christmas."
"I know exactly what you mean." Gary and I had the same best friend.
He smiled back at me, confirmed what I already knew with a few words, and added, "And he's made all the difference in my life."
If memories cannot be counted on as an accurate representation of reality but only our distorted perception of it only further distorted by time... how can we be merely the sum of our existence? If I "am" my own memories, I am only a figment of my own imagination. If the distant past is as malleable as the future, it should be possible to escape any past circumstances that supposedly hinder me. We have all of the ingredients - the grace, the freedom - what do you want to make? Every day is a new chance to recreate ourselves.
I loved today, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.