You, or Your Memory

I've been mulling over the concept of memory. Specifically wondering about memory in relation to weight, as if all the memories in our brains, all of the specific moments in time we consider to be a "memory," the filing cabinets in our brains overflowing with bits of information we drudge up from time to time; what do they weigh?

One of my creative writing teachers loved using the term "psychic weight," in order to describe various important moments in stories. Its a term that's always stuck with me.

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I suppose its because I said goodbye to yet another old and close friend this weekend. Yet another person that made this town as lovable as it is for me, has wandered away to the next stage of her journey through life.

We sort of drifted apart over the last few years, though at one time I would have considered us very close. We were even intimate, a very long time ago, what seems like another lifetime, something we still joked about to this very day.

We also used to spend an absurd amount of time going to various bars around town, including the The Bar, which of all the places we used to frequent, stood the test of time, as being one of the last bars to still be around, that didn't change in some way, didn't close down.

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I was sitting on a stool, feeling suddenly drunk after the shot I had just taken, watching the people all around the bar, the friends gathered around the table. I looked at all the photographs on the walls of various musical acts that had once graced our bar, the same photographs I've looked at for years. Suddenly I grew very tired, and felt the weight. The weight of all the memories I've had from going to the The Bar night after night. The psychic weight of all the people I've met, girls kissed, friends hugged and beer bottles clinked, crazy drunken antics inside the bar, outside on the railroad tracks, tears shed, goodbye parties thrown (there's been quite a few of these lately), bands I've seen, dancing I've done, or even the times I don't remember because I was so drunk...

I made my goodbyes quickly and without warning, and I left the celebration early. Along the walk home, I looked around at the various houses, thought of a lot of the places in town that I know, that I've been in, restaurants eaten at, all of it, all of it with some kind of memory of the time that this happened, or when I was going through this particularly dark time of life, or when I was really happy and content...

All of those moments. I know these memories are all in my head, but sometimes I wonder if somehow they impact the place where they happen. Leave some sort of particle dusting, an iota of something important happened here, that maybe other people can somehow pick up on. Then I thought about the weight of it all, and how so much happens all the time, at every moment, during every second; its just my perception of it, where I was when that thing happened.

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I've said goodbye to so many people lately. Good people that I will miss, that in some sort of jealousy and selfishness I do not want to leave, even though I know they must do it for themselves, because they need to grow.

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I've also been brooding about other things, which again, pertain to memory. But I won't go into that right now. I'm late for my cartoons.

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Thanks for that extra hour of sunlight. My brain hasn't fully switched over yet, but it made a huge difference. One more small step to the inevitably, coming Spring.