That Feel

Perhaps it's the wet leaves that I know must litter the ground outside, or the flooding in my kitchen caused by the leaking roof; or the fleeting power-outtages that did not stay, but which made their peripheral presence known. Whatever it is, it's that one thing that, according to Tom Waits (with Keith Richards in the background to boot), you can't lose: That feel. Don't ask me to describe it, because it can't be described except by way of circling it and shooting through it without quite hitting it on the mark; but you know it when you have it, and I have it. It's not love, but more something like the awe of every kind of love one has ever had for anything ever. It's a feeling of not wanting to forget so many other feelings. It's a feeling of not wanting to lose those feelings. It's a feeling of sadness as one watches memories slowly fade and become paler, and the feeling of relief and joy upon realizing that there are so many moments yet to come in one's lifetime. It's the feeling of total and complete gratitude for those in one's life who are most loved. It's the simultaneous fear of losing these people, and fear of never meeting the others who could be these sorts of precious people. It's an open window in a suburb of Paris in the middle of the night, in a room that smells like pastries and cologne and coffee. It's a small elevator, and a large parking lot, and a small telephone booth, and a number of strange shops and an absence of people. It's a bus in Portland, and the colors of the seats and the nickels on the floor. It's a tree, in the middle of a field next to an orchard, under a full moon, and beer and whiskey both, and a laugh shared with the company there. It's the exchange of a book in a little park during a Christmas festival and a promise to return the book and to start anew. It's a walk to a trash can in a dirty city and a conversation about wanting to start again. It's a kiss in a church parking-lot at five in the morning and a moment of panic as the sun begins to rise. It's the feeling of sneaking out of one's bedroom in the middle of the night as a teenager, not to meet someone or to do anything illicit but just to be out in the night air, and just to have gotten there by way of sneaking out. It's the frozen noses of winter in the middle of the night, and the silence of solitude underneath the pine trees. It's a song's ability to bring tears to one's eye as that song is heard through headphones in the middle of the softest and quietest of snow-storms. It's the warm air and dry red dirt of a summer back home, and the stained and scratched purple hands of the blackberry-picker after hours of picking. It's the thousands of feet between one's nose and the floor of the valley as you look over at the Yosemite valley and feel very much a part of things and yet very, very small. It's frozen hands from snowball fights, and swollen eyes from sleepless nights, and long walks home from school just for the sake of walking under the pines. It's the act of leaning over the rail of a balcony to watch strangers pass by below, unaware that they are being watched. It's a nap in a park in the middle of the afternoon. It's that space of silence in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep. It's Christmas morning when you're awake too early and you're still young enough to wear pajamas with feet. It's the thumbing-through of picture-books and the wonder thereby induced. It's the callused hands from games of dodgeball and the broken nails from tetherball. It's the fear to approach another and the excitement felt at the same time over the idea of making a new friend. It's the brief goodbyes that don't sum up the moments before. It's the attempt to define those things which can't be bound by words. It's the look of understanding in the middle of a sentence and the look that follows which recognizes that the look before it pertained to something entirely unrelated to the sentence uttered. It's the space between faces and eyes and hands and noses, and the lack of space. It's the words uttered while waking, and the last words before sleep. It's all the things that slipped away from your memory as time passed by, or because you drank too much that night, or because you couldn't bear to remember those things because they were too beautiful or because they were too painful. It's the sudden remembrance or something from long ago that is unimportant but which happened. It's the running ahead of a group in order to be the first to look at some particular painting in a museum, just to get there first or just to see it without having to discuss it with anyone, just for a minute; to look at it in silence for that moment before the group catches up. It's the waving at a stranger because he's on his bike in the rain and so are you. It's the good meal after a long hike. It's the sky that makes you think about everyone you've ever missed when you realize that you wish they were there to look at that sky with you. It's those people who will never know how much they mean to you. It's that fear that you might forget, and the trust that you won't. It's the fact that every time you look at someone in the eye, every moment of past eye-contact and conversation and time spent together is summed up there in that present interaction. It's the way in which every past moment and thought and idea and experience and feeling serves as ornamentation for the present moment; and every past moment serves as a window through which to view the present. None of this will feel the same or look the same, but things will be felt and things will be seen. It's none of these things, but all of them and more, but only when these things are fluid and at risk of being forgotten and considered with regard to the infinite number of possibilities that await the individual.

I don't really know what or who is to blame, but this season causes my heart to swell up like that of the Grinch, and I feel myself floored by whatever it means to be alive and to learn and to fuck up and to falter and to love. I don't want to forget anything. I feel this need to write everything down before it's gone; but if I write things too fast it won't quite describe anything as it should. Perhaps it's best to process it all slowly, allowing for some of it to perhaps be forgotten (although hopefully not the sound of the hail on the roof as it awoke my childhood self in the middle of the night), if that means that those things processed and written down can be written about in the right way.

None of this was described in the right way, but at least it made me realize that these things are worth writing down someday in the right way. I hope the right day comes for remembering these things and writing them down right.

I'm sure that many of the moments that I forget were really, really beautiful. Many of those that I remember certainly were. Perhaps somebody else remembers some beautiful moment that I forget; and somebody else another, and so on. Some moments are just lost... "Like tears in rain."

Perhaps that makes life all the more precious. Life itself happens to be its own only record.