To Memory

I’m on my second pot of coffee. The first was consumed on the familiar winding roads that lead through Meadowbrook, Jamesville, and Pompey. Destination: Highland Forest.

I weaved down roads that I have known for many years, picking and choosing the side routes that may or may not be quicker but are too special to ignore. I sipped my Westcott Blend coffee to the familiar descant of Justin Vernon’s silky falsetto. My favorite line of lyrics is the last line of “Re: Stacks” from the “For Emma, Forever Ago” album.

Your love will be safe with me.

I’ve lived in the Syracuse area my entire life. Some may say that it’s their worst nightmare to live their adulthood out in the same place that they lived through their most immature, confusing, and self-forming stages. I say it’s the greatest dream I’ve ever accidentally encountered.

My world sometimes feels very small; running into friends outside of Joann (Hi, Lottie!), calling up the Magnolia Journal customer service because Cora got her Winter Edition magazine before me, and trying to avoid being caught up in the coffee shops for too long because I have a schedule to hold myself to. When my brain is calm enough I can drive along these routes to familiar areas and get flashes of special memories that I would otherwise forget without the prompting of the environment where they happened. Today I drove by the big hill that my church friends and I used to go to after dark and sled down after a heavy snowfall. I felt like the coolest person ever especially when I was invited along with the teenagers like Becky Benedict, Juliana LaSala, and my sister Alyssa. I also drove down Route 91 where I always look up into the hill and see the same large cabin-like house with big windows and dream that someday I’ll have a house just like it. I drove by the Wright’s house remembering the card games and songs we used to sing at the piano in the living room. The LaSala’s home was like a massive playground where I spent almost every Sunday after church. I don’t remember every room of the house because there were too many but I remember the kitchen where we made endless amounts of apple crisp, the piano room where we would sing our songs from choir for fun, the loft where we would play truth or dare, and the living room where we watched movies together. I remember the bonfire spot, the woods, the basketball court, and the golf course we walked to right after I had cut my hair short for the first time. I also drove by the church that my Mom’s funeral was held and where I once sat in the parking lot with Cora and watched the sunset.

Each of these memories feels like a fragment that I gather up and collect as proof of my identity. I may not have the same relationships or love the same things and certainly not every memory is as wholesome as these, but they worked together to create this special story that I’m both telling and continually reading.

I suppose my world really isn’t as small as I thought. With each restored memory I begin to grow larger with gratitude and that simply cannot be contained.