Amateur astronomy and memory
Have you ever stood outside at night to look at the stars, and caught one that seemed especially bright and beautiful out of the corner of your eye, only to have it disappear when you looked at it straight on? It’s as if you can only see it clearly through peripheral vision, which by its very nature is not all that clear.
Since he died, a lot of my memories of A have been like that. These memories are also different in that they are almost always simple, mundane memories of him, rather than of events of our life together. Those I can recall fairly easily, but these memories are more of the flavor of the moment, the essence of who he was. Is. They are, in fact, the most important memories. They will seep into my consciousness, in intricate detail at the very edge of my mind’s eye, but as soon as I stop to appreciate them, they disappear; the screen of my mind goes temporarily blank. It is such a consistent pattern that I have nearly trained myself not to focus on them when they do come, lest they go away. If I can keep my mind fuzzy, they linger a bit longer, and if I can put my mind in that place, I can recall them, but if I try to stare at them, they will not stay. It is almost as if I need to be doing something else for the memories to appear; maybe the more cognitive areas of my brain have to be engaged in order for the more visceral ones to be able to get through. I don’t really know the “why” of it; I just know how I’ve experienced it.
In the last day or so, I’ve had a couple of these vivid, yet ephemeral, memories. Yesterday, it was a memory of him sitting, playing his guitar in that totally relaxed way of his, one I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to emulate, and I could see the way his hands moved over the strings. This morning as I sat down to breakfast, I remembered him serving me eggs. I could see him standing in his little kitchen, fry pan in hand. He always liked cooking for me, it seemed. And I liked him cooking for me, so it was unanimous.
I am grateful that such memories come to me unbidden, that they are not lost even if I’m not aware of which corner cubby my brain organized them in at the time; often I am surprised by them because I was not aware that I even remembered them at all. I’m glad for the memories, though their realism often makes me sad because I miss him all the more.
I think sometimes I have periods of missing the idea of the man, where there is a distance between me and the loss of him. I think the distance is self-imposed, and gives me a little breathing room, a break from dealing with strong emotions all the time. There are other poignant moments, though, of missing the man, the soul, the essence of who he was: that which I loved with all I am. There is no distance there; that is why, though I miss him all the time, sometimes I miss him even more, because I’m right there.
I guess in that sense, I’m glad those kinds of memories, the kind that overtake me rather than those that are summoned, are not constant. I don’t think I could be right there all the time and still go on living my life, which is what I suppose I am to be doing. I accept the misty moments as they come, and then ease back into my regularly scheduled programming. Is this healing, then? I guess, if nothing else, it is healing, now.