scent of a memory
Funny how when things are happening, we don’t know whether that moment would be crystallized in our memory, and we don’t know which shape it will take there. Which taste will be associated with it and what sensation? When will I remember it next? In which state will I be then, and in which state will it be? Which time of the day will it pop up into, and in what context? Will it be sad or happy? Is it more like a Sunday morning sensation, or will it remind us of that side walk in a different part of the world where we once strolled, and which we considered our terrain forever, that we will always have access to, but alas, little did we know. You know how it is when we wake up yet still half asleep, we get that fuzzy memory, with almost that same taste, and for a split of a second we figure that we are going to spend that Saturday afternoon in that now remote, impossible-to-reach-city, with those people we loved to be with, who only remind us of how happy we were, how beautiful, how young and single and capable and free, and above all how desired? With all potentials of a Saturday afternoon that any free person can think of. But like me, most of those people are not free and young anymore. They might be having those same dreams right now. I wonder, when they remember what I remember; will they remember it the same way? With the same associations and tastes and yearnings? As much as I hear consolations such as each age has advantages and each state comes at a price and so on, it makes me very sad to know that there is no return. At least I speak for myself: I am converging to less freedom and less beauty and fewer possibilities and only more memories and stronger yearnings to unreachable states.
Given that I know these facts, and that reruns happen only on TV, I want to get happiness in a different way. I want to feel it from inside my head. Not necessarily coming from actions and strolls and streets and people and states of action but rather from trans-actions. You know that split of happiness that suddenly takes hold of you when you are doing a mundane activity, and then all of a sudden you change gears and pick up enthusiasm? Your receiver or partner in conversation notices a change of heart but knows not its source. In “younger” normal circumstances I would have remembered that the rest of that day will be upper than regular days, which is uplifting. For older people, the reason could be that a beautiful memory has just surfaced. In ideal cases, inner happiness of some blissful state would have surfaced. I do want these states to be only sparse, otherwise it will be the norm, which does not cause Ups, and I am an Ups fan.
