The Senses

I need new music, new food, new movies to watch. So many have memories tied to them...like those stupid cans that clank after idiots freshly married, driving down narrow streets, blithely unaware of the metaphor they are dragging behind them. 

I want to replace the memories anchored to the taste of beer. Beer of all things! I can't. Oysters. Fury Road. It's all a minefield. But only some days.

Other days, it is a lovely stroll down memory lane, happy images sprinkled among the daisies in the field, blowing among the tall grass. Sweet footsteps down familiar paths where hands were never held, but souls intertwined. So much more to the senses than what is perceived. 

The birds some mornings call only to me, and on other mornings ask me why he isn't there to identify them, lying there, rubbing his eyes, telling me what he can hear on the other side of the windows and trees.

​They miss him too, I guess. They understand the appreciation that comes with identification. The love wrapped in the attention it takes to remember the sounds and the names of the lovely winged messengers.

And how lucky am I to lament such a loss? Who would I have been without this, this life where I had the opportunity to feel more deeply than I had thought possible? Where would I be without this loss of great love?

I'm happy I chose this path, though it is strewn with thorns and shards of old sturdy jars, the kind used to pickle and preserve, kept safely in the dark, under the counter, until the perfect moment when everything inside them blossoms. 

There is so much intertwining now. So much joy that brings up sadness and so much sadness that brings me back into joy. Is this how it's supposed to be? Are these my feelings? Am I so fortunate as to feel these simultaneous and wondrous complications of light and dark? Will this be how it goes?

​For now I am happy to remember with all my senses all the things I used to enjoy. I am happy to understand the depth of my loss and still have the wherewithal to celebrate it.

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I have never written anything that is more precisely how I feel in a moment. I hope you have enjoyed reading this one. I sure did enjoy writing it.