it's gone.
but how could it be?
i was just there
a month ago...
it had been there
since before my
memories of this city
were actual experiences.
close to 9 years.
we used to go there
when we lived in
the neighborhood.
almost every saturday
or sunday,
we'd sit under the
awning, on the sidewalk
listening to the cars
drive by, watching
the hipsters check
their look in the
reflection in the glass,
eating,
talking,
fulfilling that promise
we made to one another
that we would
never become that couple
who sat across the
the table from one
another, reading the
newspaper in silence,
speaking only
when one wanted
the other to pass
a certain section.
i can remember us
there, that first morning
after i returned
from india,
a short walk from our
apartment, i stumbled a bit
because the clock
had knocked me around.
we sat there
sipping tea,
and i told her
about my last day there,
and the cake in
my face, and
the gifts i was given
and the friends i
would miss.
i told her
i'd never leave her
again.
she liked that.
months later i would
go again,
and we both
would be sad,
even though we both
knew it was
the best thing
for our future.
i would come back
and go again
and again
and again.
thankfully i
skipped the
trip i was
supposed to take
on the day
that she died.
...
i remembered all of this
in an instant
as i drove by another
place, another thing
that is no longer here.
We were visiting the city that he and lived in and stayed at a hotel right by a strip mall where the indie coffee shop we frequented was located. I was looking forward to stopping in. The owners had been so kind to him when so many people avoided him or treated him like a freak.
ReplyDeleteBut it was gone. Driven out of business by a new Starbucks nearby, I guess.
I'm a landmarks person. Street names and google maps mean nothing to me, but buildings are different. They are like the pictures in a scrapbook. Tangible with memory. But reminders too that time has passed and changed them - just like us.
Matt, one thing that happened to me that I will alwys remeber.I was traveling down the road I had traved down a dozen times, before after his death, and all of a sudden it all came back to me how many times we had traveled down that road together. And I cried realizing he would never travel down this road again with me. Did it at least a dozen times, before it hit me. Funny how that can happen to you!
ReplyDelete