Astral weeks
This guy I was kind of in love with from afar gave me this thing made out of paper. You could say it was hypnotic suggestion, or neurolinguistic programing, or whatever astute terminology you'd like that led to it. Maybe he was merely a good guesser. Whatever went on that night was a bit strange. A flood of memories came back, going deeper into the recesses of my mind. It was a journey of sorts. Memory works like that sometimes, like the right linking of free associations will lead back to the one definitive thing that will be the key to unlocking it all. Anyway, I arrived at a particular memory. Like some sort of magician, he guessed precisely where and when it occurred even though I'd never met the guy in my life. So got I got this paper thing in the box full of memories is the only way I can describe what was going on that night without sounding completely nuts. He said this thing was to serve as a ticket of sorts to that memory. After the performance we went out and got trashed at a bar and celebrated his friend's birthday, like we'd all known each other all along. Maybe in some way we had.
It's kind of a silly thing, a you had to be there sort of thing, but I still carry the ticket with me wherever I go nearly a year and a half later. I don't think so much about the memory from a longaway place/time that the ticket was linked to these days, as the its original purpose was to serve. Now this strange little paper thing reminds me of that night, during a time when things seemed like they were stagnating and turning back on themselves, and where I've gone since. I've gone places and met people and made new memories.
I saw him again a few months later. The objective of this night was letting go. Another magic night beyond wildest dreams: giddy, linked arm in arm with Sam, leaping over a flaming pot of memories in the middle of a street in New York City. I expect to see him again soon, though I can't be sure when. I'll probably keep the ticket forever even though the previous place/time means less to me now and I've made new memories since that matter more. A funny small part of me had still believed quite deeply and falsely that there would be one thing that would change it all. Of course who can see anything when you're in the midst of that moment?
At Jared's house, I found a Thomas Hardy book on his brother's shelf amongst the Christian literature and weird books about how to be a preacher. The best part about Thomas Hardy, according to me: "Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change." I attribute that surprising change to more than just the progression of time, though. That's inevitable. The ticket, that paper thing I carry around in my wallet was the thing that initiated something different. So the value I place on the ticket then is that it can serve as a physical, concrete marker of a turning point. Yeah, it got worse before it got better, but it got a whole fucking lot better.