one thread

have you ever tried to take one aspect of your life as it is today, and trace it as far back as possible through your memory? admittedly, it's not an easy thing to do. for one, many aspects of our lives at any given stage are only remotely connected to who/what/where we were, say at 3 years old. how many threads of the tapestry of your life are woven from the one end to the (rapidly expanding, sorta ragged, unfinished) end you're at now?

I found one a few days ago.

it's a picture. I just pulled it out from under two large boxes of VHS tapes that I keep under my desk. before that, it was pinned to a stained, blowzy, disarrayed bulletin board I have up on the kitchen counter to give the cockroaches their own little back alley. before that, I think it might have resided on my mother's refridgerator door for quite some time.

in the picture, which you can see in my collection of images on my profile, two children embrace. the little boy in the green pants and snazzy striped shirt is me. the little girl in her daddy's tube socks and a precious lacy dress (with bloomers!) doesn't need to be named. I'm not sure I'd be able to pick her out of a crowd or recognize her at lunch somewhere today.

but I knew her when I wore diapers. I after-schooled at her house my entire kindergarten year. I crushed on her in high school. I saw her occasionally around town during college, always in passing. and now she makes me smile from all the way back at Thanksgiving 1983.

she's a memory, an entity, a thread through almost my entire life. whether she was present in person, or just represented (like in this picture), she's been around since I was two. perhaps what gets me most about that is that how you see us in that picture is probably the closest we ever were. I was never friends with her after kindergarten; I moved to a different school for first grade. then another school for the rest of elementary. we ended up at the same high school, but there was 670 kids in the graduating class, so the chances of us having a single class together out of four years was rather low (also, I suspect we just ended up on different tracks), and we never socialized. sure, I knew her in HS as the girl I hug in the picture, and as a really cute blonde who wouldn't give me the time of day at age 17. but nothing ever came close to that hug.

anyway, I like tracing cracks in asphalt. I'm fond of fractals. and I like remembering between mes; conjuring up the emotions and connections of a self that I am no longer to the me I am now. that cute little girl in her red and white dress is a big connector.

while I'm at it, I'll mention that I have the picture in question available for ranking. I do so only because it's been ranked twice, to the composite score of 4.6. that, in and of itself, is hardly worth mentioning. however, I did mention it to a myspace friend back when the picture had been ranked only once, to a composite score of 4.6. weird.

Currently Listening:
12 Etudes, Op. 10
By Chopin
Performed by Cecile Licad