Icicles and memory
I spent today running like a machine. Got the exams done. Graded the last of the papers as they took their exams. All while orchestrating a tamale lunch. They were cold, but it was a try, and at least it was the thought that counts.
Back to the office to deal with it all, and get a few things done. Tamales for all the colleagues, and emergencies only today. And then Kippy comes in and wants to know the names of people who have contacted me about using my database. Seriously? Like anyone cares? No one is going to contact them, and that was 2005. They filed a request with the database organizers.
Looking through my conference stuff, I picked up the book of abstracts and these little cards fell out. They were from Isola Verde, where we all stayed in Italy. Perhaps one of the happiest places from one of the happiest times ever in my life.
I sat down. I looked at the photo on the card, remembered so many details about this place. It all came back so fast and made me feel light-headed. Vorrei. I want to remember without it feeling like being stabbed with an icicle. The sharp pain, the cold that sinks in, then slowly fades away, leaving me bleeding a little bit. I'm just thinking that over time, memories like this will become something that is only joyful. Only a joyful echo.
I look up. Eminem is standing in my doorway. "Hi Seyewailo! You kind of look like you just saw a ghost." I look down at the little card.
"I guess I did." We laugh. I deal with the issue at hand.
I wish I had photos of that trip. I have asked for a copy of the digital photos, both from Munchkin and from Flufffy. I know that one day I will want to look at them and laugh about creepy house and that night in Vinci.
What I do have is my memory, the stories and sensations. I find that I fear that I will lose it somehow. And yet, when Cub_cake was admiring my wallet the other day, and I told her that I got it in Florence, I could see it all. I could see the church, and the market where I bought it. I remember the crazy lunch at the central market, running through the Uffizi with Flufffy and Munchkin in wheelchairs, and the realization that gay men saved western civilization. I could smell it, the way Tuscany smells, like earth.
Drunk on house wine and laughing under a full moon, dancing in the grass. Sitting on the bench with the rest of the bottle saying "vorrei, vorrei, vorrei...". And all we could think of to want in Italian was a melon, and a mercedes benz and a half kilo of sausage. Because honestly, what more do you need on such a night, watching the moon hanging over the patchwork valleys from on top of your little green island in the sky?
At some point I realized that I probably don't need those photos yet. And there will be time to ask for them again in a few years. That if there isn't time, then I certainly won't need them. I love the color the red leather of the wallet has become, so burnished and beautiful and glossy. And I know my memories are similar, made of good leather, that becomes more beautiful over time, until it just doesn't even poke me anymore.
I wrote down the names on a pad of paper for Kippy, and then slipped the cards back into the book to stab me another day. Maybe next year it will slip more quietly between the ribs and into my heart, and will only make me smile instead of looking haunted. Eventually, the joy returns to being untarnished, bright as the day it is made.
And with that I packed up my stuff and left my office. I'm grateful for that time we all spent together in that place. But like any ghost, even joy must find a place to rest eventually.
Back to the office to deal with it all, and get a few things done. Tamales for all the colleagues, and emergencies only today. And then Kippy comes in and wants to know the names of people who have contacted me about using my database. Seriously? Like anyone cares? No one is going to contact them, and that was 2005. They filed a request with the database organizers.
Looking through my conference stuff, I picked up the book of abstracts and these little cards fell out. They were from Isola Verde, where we all stayed in Italy. Perhaps one of the happiest places from one of the happiest times ever in my life.
I sat down. I looked at the photo on the card, remembered so many details about this place. It all came back so fast and made me feel light-headed. Vorrei. I want to remember without it feeling like being stabbed with an icicle. The sharp pain, the cold that sinks in, then slowly fades away, leaving me bleeding a little bit. I'm just thinking that over time, memories like this will become something that is only joyful. Only a joyful echo.
I look up. Eminem is standing in my doorway. "Hi Seyewailo! You kind of look like you just saw a ghost." I look down at the little card.
"I guess I did." We laugh. I deal with the issue at hand.
I wish I had photos of that trip. I have asked for a copy of the digital photos, both from Munchkin and from Flufffy. I know that one day I will want to look at them and laugh about creepy house and that night in Vinci.
What I do have is my memory, the stories and sensations. I find that I fear that I will lose it somehow. And yet, when Cub_cake was admiring my wallet the other day, and I told her that I got it in Florence, I could see it all. I could see the church, and the market where I bought it. I remember the crazy lunch at the central market, running through the Uffizi with Flufffy and Munchkin in wheelchairs, and the realization that gay men saved western civilization. I could smell it, the way Tuscany smells, like earth.
Drunk on house wine and laughing under a full moon, dancing in the grass. Sitting on the bench with the rest of the bottle saying "vorrei, vorrei, vorrei...". And all we could think of to want in Italian was a melon, and a mercedes benz and a half kilo of sausage. Because honestly, what more do you need on such a night, watching the moon hanging over the patchwork valleys from on top of your little green island in the sky?
At some point I realized that I probably don't need those photos yet. And there will be time to ask for them again in a few years. That if there isn't time, then I certainly won't need them. I love the color the red leather of the wallet has become, so burnished and beautiful and glossy. And I know my memories are similar, made of good leather, that becomes more beautiful over time, until it just doesn't even poke me anymore.
I wrote down the names on a pad of paper for Kippy, and then slipped the cards back into the book to stab me another day. Maybe next year it will slip more quietly between the ribs and into my heart, and will only make me smile instead of looking haunted. Eventually, the joy returns to being untarnished, bright as the day it is made.
And with that I packed up my stuff and left my office. I'm grateful for that time we all spent together in that place. But like any ghost, even joy must find a place to rest eventually.