Can Nothing More Be Done?
If I told you everything now, you'd get half the story and likely less. Memory is pixilated, moving too fast for the mind's eye to follow. Recognizable shapes, forms, some sense of smell maybe, but all a soft blur - something Renoir would have liked. Every time I tell the story, I leave out the Bellagio and the ceiling of glass flowers, the coffee and the conversation. I can never tell anyone about the moths and the moonlight, about patterns in the bottoms of fountains. I usually skimp on the poolside bed with its draping white curtains, transparent enough to see the stars through.
Memories become more familiar with each visitation, and familiarity fudges details. Like the places you live, you take for granted those things that at first sight were magical, awe-ful. Who but you knows of the postcard prostitutes and valentine traffic? I can't keep telling this story, but I'm afraid I'll forget if I don't. Either way, it seems destined to disappear. I've never known desperate futility like watching memory slip slowly through fibrous fingers. "I want to keep this one!" I plead, knowing that all the while some detail has faded. What I felt that night I feel like starlight, knowing that the light is only the echo of a dead star, long gone.
Memories become more familiar with each visitation, and familiarity fudges details. Like the places you live, you take for granted those things that at first sight were magical, awe-ful. Who but you knows of the postcard prostitutes and valentine traffic? I can't keep telling this story, but I'm afraid I'll forget if I don't. Either way, it seems destined to disappear. I've never known desperate futility like watching memory slip slowly through fibrous fingers. "I want to keep this one!" I plead, knowing that all the while some detail has faded. What I felt that night I feel like starlight, knowing that the light is only the echo of a dead star, long gone.