Memory

My code to the door wouldn't work for another twenty minutes and I realized as the door shut and clicked behind me that I'd left my keys inside. I was the only one there, so I sat out in the hallway this morning looking at the flowers painted on the wall. They're lovely little flowers, red and simple, as though the children themselves could have painted them.

I thought of Bhagsu, the little Indian village in the middle of the Himalayas where I lived for six weeks. Memory's funny that way. I thought of the painting on the wall behind the cafe counter of our little guesthouse. It was the picture of a valley with a river running through it, dividing the mountains. In the sky were two large eyes staring directly back at their viewers. Only a small portion of it was filled in with color.

I asked the owner, Anil, about it. He told me a young British artist had stayed with him one year and offered to paint a scene on his blank wall. She had gotten that far and then left, promising to come back and complete it. I loved the way he said it, the way every part of him believed she would return, the way he had complete faith that one day this little sketch would be a masterpiece.

I thought about her this morning, staring at those little red flowers. I wondered where she was, if she had remembered her promise, if she had meant it at the time, if she would ever fulfill it. I wondered if he was a fool to believe in her, in promises. I too, told them that I would one day return. At the time it felt as simple as turning the corner and being back in India, but almost two years later, it somehow feels so far away.

I wondered if every time she sat down to paint, she thought of that painting, of the one she has yet to complete. I wondered if it haunted her, the way unfulfilled promises do. I wondered if every part of her longed to be back there, standing in that little room scented with cigarette smoke and ginger, filling in the soft curved lines of her river.

Because most days, even if I'm not fully aware of it, I miss the soft curved lines of my pen moving across the empty pages of my journal. I miss sitting on the benches with international strangers, drinking mint tea made from the mint leaves growing in the garden below, and writing. I miss gathering together beneath the tin roofs of our patio during a daily (and yet still unexpected) hailstorm, listening to the tiny bits of ice bang against the hot metal. I miss that sense of belonging, the way gathering together there made us one, the way being travelers made us equals.

I miss waking up in the morning for the sole purpose of writing. I miss feeling like I existed just to write, just to open my eyes, walk out into the world and record my findings. I miss that sense of discovery.

I remember how anxious my friends felt to move on, to explore more, to not waste their days revisiting the same stretch of land over and over again. But I loved that feeling. I loved walking the same three miles to and from the nearest town each day and each time, seeing and hearing and feeling something new. I loved how open my head and heart became when my only responsibility was to be consciously aware of opening them. I loved that my time was mine.

I wrote like a woman possessed, as though to not document my every thought about every detail would somehow mean I had failed myself. Which is why now, I can remember every strike of lightening during those hailstorms. I can remember every face and laugh and conversation. I can remember every smell and every flower and every sunset. I can remember every footstep of those three miles to and from our room. I can remember all of the joy it brought me. I can remember what it felt like to be completely free.

I can remember every stroke of paint on that once blank wall. I can know that what I felt, that young artist once felt too. I can know that the artists who will follow us will feel it as well. I can know that something as simple as a red flower painted on a hallway wall will remain with me, forever. And that it will reappear in my memory at a time when I least expect it.