Do you ever have that thing happen where you experience something purely only that first time, even though you encounter it again and again at different moments of existence, but always uniquely, as a different completely different creature than that first time you experienced it? Every subsequent encounter is different because you are different, but you still have the memory of that first time, and you bring that to your second experience of it, and memories are layered one upon the other until you have constructed an understanding that you don’t recognize, and that first experience and the fresh flavor it left in your mouth are gone, but you still think of it as its own separate meeting, apart from any of those subsequent, so much so that you begin to doubt you have experienced that something more than once at all because in your mind, there is only that one time. The first time is the most important because it is brand new. And something that is brand new can never be as good the second time around.
Jacquie had made dinner that night, and Ashley had come over to join us. Because she doesn’t drink, Jacquie and I had the bottle of wine to ourselves. I had already finished a glass when I recalled that I’d given blood the day before. “Oh, well,” I sputtered out between incessant fits of giggles. I tried to keep them in so that Ashley wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, but there were times I couldn’t help myself. After dinner, Ashley returned to the art building to finish one project or another, and I let Jacquie convince me that a walk down the street for ice cream was both a good idea and absolutely necessary at that moment.
Returning to the apartment with a slightly sick stomach, realizing I must be a glutton for punishment, but without dwelling on that too much, I went to my room, and with the lights out and the windows open, I lay back on the floor with my legs up on my bed and listened to the still then fairly-new-to-me Fleet Foxes album. Between the wine and the nearly-Spring breeze meandering through the open windows, I slipped into a euphoria, and the music played on without me. But somewhere around the middle of the record, I returned to my senses by a sharp pull, tied at one end to a particular song. I couldn't remember ever hearing it before that very moment, but once I was aware of its presence, it crashed into me, aiming straight at my chest. I started to feel slightly panicked but mostly excited; it was such a strange sensation to be intertwined with an intangible entity. I was overcome.
I can't remember what happened after that. Maybe I passed out, but I doubt that because it's not something that happens to me ever, the same as getting sick--I just don't really. Even so, the proceeding minutes and potentially hours did not leave an impression on my memory. But if I had to guess, I would say that I had laid there on my bedroom floor for a while trying to remember the song that had paralyzed me (rather like I do in the morning when I lay in bed and try to remember a pleasant dream from the night before, while still giving that dream room to breathe and not pressuring it, in case this would have the reverse effect and cause it to scatter). Then maybe after a few minutes I fell asleep and upon waking thought that all of it had been a dream after all...
The memory of that experience didn't leave me feverish for long, though. I went about my days as I'd always done and will always continue to do. I kept an ear out for the song the next time I listened to Fleet Foxes, but I never did hear what I'd heard that first night, never felt those sensations that I had. I’ve since convinced myself that the song that so overtook me was “Your Protector,” but there are times when the little part of me that had been there that night on my bedroom floor, the part that was at the same time frozen in place and on fire with excitement, would taunt me, saying, “Nope. That was something altogether different, and you will never hear it again.”
No comments:
Post a Comment