Ghost Ribbons and the Past

I don't remember the past very well. Or, maybe it's just because I have a tendency to live in the future. Sometimes I can be present, but I rarely feel the urge to look back in a reminiscent kind of way.

When I do go into my history, the things I tend to remember seem to revolve around the weirdness of existence. I recall things like sitting on my front porch when I was probably five or six. We lived in the city, so there was a steady flow of traffic and the random person walking to the bus stop or the corner convenience store. I still have the image in my head of a woman strolling down the sidewalk and me thinking how weird it was that she wasn't me. That she had her own body and story and how it lead to something that I'll never know. Our paths would never cross again and she was probably not even aware that they did to begin with.

Sometimes I'd try to envision the obliviousness to the paths we create and wonder how many times in our lives paths would briefly meet again. I would imagine a ghostlike ribbon that was created by people wherever they went, similar to how a stunt plane casts smoke trails from their exhaust. My vision of the "people trails" was a little more delicate looking as well as permanent.

It quickly became overwhelming to try and trace all of the trails that were constantly being made. I came up with a filtering system in my mind where I could isolate all the instances and find the times where I bumped into these unknown people throughout my life. I tried and picture what they did between these brief random meetings. I figured that it was mostly just the same mundane moments as mine. They watched tv and sat on their porch. They probably even had similar thoughts. It was a lot of nothing worth writing home about.

This perspective made life seem bizarre and it still does. Maybe this is why I don't look into the past too much. It feels I'm in the same place, or the outlook and questions are the same. Of course, there is much more refinement in thought and pursuit, but it's still the same weirdness I see everywhere. Is all of this absurd, or does it have an inherent meaning? The answer to this can dictate one's path.

***

Since it's the anniversary of the death of my daughter, I'm somewhat forced to think about my past around this time of year. It's not the detached and objective kind of reflection either, but one of pure subjective phenomenon. The emotion of the experience sits on me and doesn't let me escape. It’s like when I was pinned down as a kid by my older cousin and tickled. I was helpless. That's what life always does to us at some point. It gives us something we don’t want, but we have to carry it anyway. Death is the ultimate proof of this and of how helpless we are on the most profound level. I'm happy to have seen this so clearly before I got old, but it doesn't necessarily make things easier. It just gives me a chance to prepare for…life, I guess. So, maybe knowing this does help.

I remember holding my daughter when she was there and then moments later when she wasn't there. Something obviously changed, but was it simply her coloring or her glazed eyes? I remember the smell that came from her mouth most clearly. I would say it was her breath, but it wasn't breath. It wasn't a bad smell, but it wasn't good either. What it technically was doesn't really interest me as well. A medical explanation doesn't change the emotional experience. The feeling is the deeper reality for me in that moment. It shows something a textbook can't.

The impact my daughter made on me and others was strange. She changed people dramatically. It seemed to be highly concentrated also, considering she was only two. It could even have a polarizing effect and it was simply because of the fact that she was. The ghostlike ribbon she left behind had an intensity to it. It's still here and people still trace it. It's talked about and remembered.

I feel inspired and obligated to try and match that intensity with my life, but am scared I won't. The trails I leave behind are largely meaningless it seems. I can't see why anyone would search for my ribbon in their own psychological database. I don't find this hopeless though, but a kind of somber challenge. If my little two year old daughter could do it without saying a word, I assume there's hope for me. This seems to be something worth looking back on.