Moments

Moments of memory, preserved, significant.

Facing the sea in a chill, strong wind
On the campus of a college I’ll never attend
The interview holds no tension when I’ve already decided.

On a house-hunting trip with my parents
Who want to move from my childhood home
The hot, dry air wraps like a blanket
In a dark, low-ceilinged kitchen surrounded by stone
A hint of the Old World, or something older than that
I don’t think we’ll live here, but in its strangeness I wouldn’t refuse.

Walking from the dining hall back to McCormick
A downpour of rain, but I’m not caught in it, I love it
The rest melts away. Homework? Exams? But I remember the rain.

My mind tells a story with these snapshots
But what?
What does it say that it can’t say with words?
I think these moments might be pivots
Not about paths taken or not
But times when I could be unencumbered by the past
Moments that seemed otherworldly
Because they stepped outside my narrow world

Does this mean I am ready for something new?
It would be an easier poem if the answer was “yes”
A simple doorway to step through
My instincts say it may be, partly
But also it’s not as simple as that.

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This is a poem I wrote several weeks ago while contemplating some memories that seemed to be popping up in my mind, to try to see if I could figure out what my subconscious mind was trying to communicate by bringing them up.

(header image is cropped from this image from Pixabay)