Sensory Reminiscences

There's nothing I think more potent in transporting us instantly like sensory memories.  A certain smell, a certain scene, a certain song, a certain color, a certain feeling, a certain word or phrase, etc.  All these are able to instantly trigger a memory or a feelings in our minds and take us back to a connecting memory.

I'd love to say that one memory sense is more potent than another, but I'm finding that's just not true.  It depends on the measure of contact.  As a writer and working in literary field, I'm surrounded by words.  I work with words, I play with words, and I often dreams about words, so needless to say certain words, phrases, book covers, lines of prose, familiar passages of poetry are able to trigger different memories in my life at any given moment.  I've learned over the years to avoid certain types of words for that particular reason, because there's just some things you don't want to remember. 

This morning, however, it wasn't words that have transported me, but music.  I had one of the best adventures of my life last summer.  This morning my iPod was set to scramble and played songs at random and a song by MSMR came up in queue.  I was going about my business as usual when their song Hurricane started playing.  My body reacted before my mind was able to comprehend.  I froze in place, my fingers literally stopped typing, my mind jumped to a sensory memory of a particular moment standing outside an airport.  My breath caught.  My throat tightened.  I re-felt that moment of nervousness.  My stomach fluttered in anticipation.  My hands shook.  In the original moment, I had never been more excited and more afraid in my entire life.  In this moment, for just a second, I once again felt that sensation. Then, I couldn't stop the tears. 

The sad part wasn't remembering the wonderful scene, I cherish it and hope to remember it forever. What hurt was realizing how far I've retreated, how much I've stuffed a particular part of my life back into it's familiar and comfortable box. I had promised myself not to do such a thing. I've come too far to go back. I deserve to move forward.

I've set my iPod to play that album over the next few weeks, not so I can remember that beautiful summer, but to remind myself of the promises I've made, and I can once again start breaking down those damned walls. 

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

Reflections

What kind of image do we reflect?  What kind of shadow do we cast?  Most often we don’t see this image, being the original source – the body of flesh.  It’s also something others only notice when they’re not looking directly at us. 

While taking a walk yesterday I caught sight of my shadow.  As I moved, it danced in abstract to the sunlight.  While the beams bathed me with its warmth, and served as a spotlight on the open road, my shadow played all around me.  It stretched, shrank, widened, disappeared, reappeared, became long, short, dark and then faded, while the corporeal me in the light stayed the same. I laughed at the thought that it seemed my shadow got to have all the fun. 

I work really hard to make by body healthy, strong and beautiful, yet my shadow cares nothing for health, strength or appearances.  It’s different with every flicker of light, yet always the same – a shadow.  It’s not bound by the rules of gravity, reality, atoms and flesh, but by the laws of light and darkness.  Where my body has an advantage over my shadow is that it still exists in the darkness whereas the shadow only exists in the light.

I work just as hard to make my soul friendly, loving and helpful, yet not everyone views me as either. Each individual I interact with in life has a different experience, come from a different experience, and together we create a different experience together …some positive …some negative.

This whole concept got me thinking – what reflection do I truly project?  Do I control what’s projected or is what I project the true image of me, even one I can’t hide or manipulate?  I can disguise my physical features to some extent with make-up, clothes, a smile to hide the pain, but can I manipulate my reflection?  I know we try – we all try to portray the image we want people to see, but is that what they really see – or do they see what they want?  Perhaps we are not as we think we are, nor as others think we are – so, how can we tell what’s real or not?

Water and mirrored-glass reflect the truth.  But, I’m neither. Perhaps… just maybe …what I think I see is a shadow that likes to dance.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Searching For Home

In my journey to look ahead, I find myself immersed in deep thoughts this morning, a bit heavy too.  As I watch the dew glisten in the morning sunlight out my office window, I can’t help but think how connected I am with the world, yet disconnected at the same time. I am loved, yet unloved; appreciated, yet unappreciated; wanted, yet unwanted.

I’m not going to say I’ve always felt different because we’re all different, we’re all unique; no one is the same as anyone else.  Our life journeys are also unique.  But, I have always felt I didn’t belong, always on a road to somewhere else, always searching for a place to call home.  I lived in the same house for the last twenty years, but it never felt completely like home, though it was the first real home I ever had.  It was safe, which was also something I never had, and I cherish and miss it greatly.  It felt content, regular, routine, familiar and even happy.  I can close my eyes at any moment and smile as I hear the sound of my children’s laughter as they ran down those familiar halls.  My children are grown now, those halls are empty and don’t belong to me anymore.  But even through all those years, all those happy memories, there was a part of me that still yearned for home, still searched for where I belonged, still desired to be whole. 

I felt guilty for so long for not being satisfied with my lot in life, like something was wrong with me, that I was broken, perhaps even a bit rebellious for being so selfish. I mastered the art of crucifying my flesh, to suppress my wants and desires and live up to the expectations of those I loved.  Now I sit here this morning in my new apartment, free, but still not at home. 

I feel like I found home earlier this summer as I stood on a beach.  The earth shifted beneath me and the illusion of reality sharpened and I saw myself connected with everything – the sky, the water, the rocks, the air, the sun and the earth itself.  It was strange, because I’d never been in that place before, but in that moment I felt I had come home.  The feeling took several weeks to leave me.

Since that moment on the last day of May, I’ve been trying to understand what happened in that particular place in time and I can’t find an answer.  Was it the place?  Was it the company?  Was it the fact that it was the first time I ever did anything purely for myself?  Was it a state of mind?  Or was it all an illusion?  These questions plague me and I have no answer, only that I’m sitting here at my desk in the moment in time and all I want is to go home.  But where is home?  Is it in a place or a state of being?  I can move locations, eventually, but is that the answer?  When I think of all the obstacles that prevent me from physically going to that place, it literally takes my breathe away, but I’m not sure if that fear is from the thought of moving across the country, or moving and finding what I’m looking for wasn’t in a place at all… and still left feeling lost.

I don’t know, all I know is that I have to live today in this moment, in the place, and decide what to do today and to what plans should I prepare for tomorrow.  Again, I don’t know the answers, but I’m learning to eliminate some of the questions.  I do know this hole in my soul isn’t connected to a person – not one I’ve left or one I may never see again or one I may meet in the future.  I’m not waiting on anyone, and I know no one is waiting on me.  This is my journey.  This is my life.  This is my soul.  Who knows where I’ll be next week.  I feel pulled, I feel drawn, I feel compelled; I just don’t know to what… yet.  I may just stuff some clothes in a back pack and disappear into the wilderness.