I have a collection of writings from a time now cloaked in shadow. Squirreled away in compression and nestled in pixelated protection. I thought I had lost it and, for a few moments, panic ruled. In this moment, reflecting, I am at once relieved and annoyed. I undertook quite a housecleaning of sorts not too long ago and descimated an archive stretching back more than twelve years. But this, this I could not cast to the wind.
Embraced by SQL and syntax, filled with comments and symbols that have nothing to do with content except as the scaffolding within which it is organized, the thoughts and feelings of a breath of years is sleeping. Of late, an old ache awakens once more and, as usual, I sought the pages upon which memories were scribed. It is not as much an act of emotional cutting as it is soothing. Hard to explain, I suppose; something about remembering how willing I was to be soft keeps me from becoming hard in this moment… Sorrow as sandpaper under which sharp edges are smoothed.
A lament. Two really; one for the passing and one for the spasm of hurt in it. Beautiful words which have not lost meaning, even as many other meanings have risen and ebbed in the years since they were written. No true experience ever loses its potency, I suspect. When I read the words I wrote in tenderness, I remember the tenderness I had and gave. When I read the words I wrote in pain and loss, I remember that there are some things never lost, for all their active presence has long turned passive.
We choose the lessons we learn, I find. Just as we choose the shape and softness of our memories.
Regardless all, I still choose to smile. It was beautiful when it lived, it was beautiful even after it died and it is beautiful still, to me; as is he, as am I, as are we all.
A pang, bittersweet
Balanced within memory
Can yet become song