Between Steps

The Wild Memory

This morning I walked into a memory. That's the only way I can describe it. Unlike a memory inside of me, there was no, re-membering.

It was an in-the-moment happening.

It wasn't something locked away in my brain that had spontaneously arisen into my more general awareness. It was a memory out there, running free in the wild. I think if I had stepped back from the memory, I would’ve noticed an all-is-well quality to it—a quiet insistence to trust in stillness, knowing it will never abandon you. But I was too lost in resting in it.

This memory wasn’t an event I had to go into my brain to find but a state I could tune into. It was only a brushing glance, but it was real for all that—more vivid than the cars driving down the road, more present than the figures walking about me.

It’s impossible to describe, but I’ll try anyway. It tingled but did not. It was happening ‘out there’ on the street but wasn’t anywhere.

My mind tries to coalesce around it. Something about the grey of the sky and the mute colours. Something of the damp and cold in the air. Something about stone and men building. There is construction work going on. Men I couldn’t see, though I sensed them—carrying and laying stone, standing, observing their handiwork.

Something about shapes, and possibly an archway or a threshold. Something about youth and wisdom. This ‘memory’ was untethered from time. It was free from my mind. Very separate periods of my life appeared on the same page.

All of this was contained within one step I was taking towards the road. I looked left. I looked right and looked left again. It was safe to cross the road. My car was parked up the hill.

Remembering wasn’t going anywhere, but I was. Which one of us was the more reliable? Not me and my movement, but the memory, quiet in its insistence: all is well.