Yellow
Posted by Boo , Tuesday, March 23, 2010 9:47 PM
I almost remembered something the other day. It's something about yellow.
I was driving to class. I'm almost always driving these days, it seems. I've learned short cuts and work arounds and new routes to keep boredom at bay. Most days I ease into a zone that is all thought skittering to thought with no presence in the here.
But this day, the other day, a color caused me to careen into the present then lurch toward the past, where I raced toward this memory that was racing toward me.
The color was yellow. Butter yellow. Bleached gold on an old pickup. It was ahead of me and off to the right. It was suddenly the only shade of anything on a highway of grey. I was entranced as I raced toward this memory racing toward me. It was this specific hue of yellow that did it...
We almost met. We almost touched. I almost knew. But suddenly, as sudden as only yellow can be, this piece of me reached the end of it's tether and snapped back into its safe for safe keeping.
I haven't remembered this memory, but now I know it's there, waiting for me to retrieve it. I don't think I want it and I think I wish it would go away. Because there's one thing I know for sure...
I hate yellow.
It is amazing how our senses can summon cached memories from the depths in which we have stowed them away. Some, to me, rise up and fill me like a sentimental longing...such as the smell of pipe smoke that carries me headlong into an unfinished basement watching my father write formulas on a chalkboard, studying during med school. I see his make shift desk comprised of two file cabinets topped with a door, the pen cup resting in the door knob hole. He has his big ear phones on trying to drown out the noise as he works out problems. I watch him as he draws from his pipe and he notices me, and smiles.
Then others, of course, begin movies playing in my mind that I try desperately to press the pause button on, to no avail. Cigar smoke reminds me of a grandfather that chose not to love me any more...shoulder pads make me long for a time when my mother was still healthy and vibrant...baby clothes of the abandonment I felt as a young mother.
Life is beautiful and cruel, all at the same time. We must remember, however, that while we cannot erase bad memories...we DO have the power to create a batch of new and wonderful ones every day to make them a vast minority.
Thanks for being you, Bon.