Memories

Tuning into a bit of Barbara S there.... midnight not a sound on the pavement. No no this will not do!
Memories, they do form us, they do shape us into the person we are today. What we do with those memories to make us into that person is for us to decide.

Some of my memories are flashbacks. To be brutal, a lot of my memories are drunken ones. I seem to remember them in all their technicolour disaster! And I'm thinking mostly these days of memories of Nhandi but then I got to thinking of women who have been a HUGE part of my life (who aren't family) and my first memories of them. You know like when you meet a person on your first day of high school - when fate puts that person in the seat next to you - you don't know that that person is then going to be still in your life 25 years later. That that person was the only person from your SA group of friends who saw you pregnant, felt CG kick your belly, has visited you in England (and vice versa), shared a bit of your adult life. Bought you a bottle of wine in the Pick and Pay in the Waterfront 11 years ago (which by the way is STILL sitting undrunk in your living room - must be pure vinegar by now). How are you as a 12 year old meant to know all that? Well you don't. But I can still picture myself on that first day in std6 freaking out at the 'big' school stuff and seeing her smile at me and be friendly. That was my Mouse.

EBW - slightly different - my first memory of her is in the lobby of the 3 Arts, although we must have spoken previously to have met up there. By the cigarette machine trying to 'out cool' each other. Hmm the money we could have saved by trying not be so 'rop'. Well that makes me chuckle so much. I can picture myself there in my yellow mini with my pink (cerise) sandals and my green tights just trying so damn hard to fit in. Who would have thought 25 years in we'd still be chatting away on the phone.

It would be normal if say, I'd never moved to another city and then to another country.... if I had stayed where I was then that sort of thing is expected, you keep a few people from your past. But I have, we all have - been overseas, or to other towns. Moved on in life, yet we gravitate back. That's epic. No other word.

Him that can't be named said something to me last year.... how amazed he was at the bond we all had. He couldn't believe that I knew so much about their lives while being on the other side of the world.

I like that, I like that although I only have L2 in this little town, and that I sometimes just wish there was someone around who knew me when I was growing, that there is Mouse and EBW who know that I'm slightly spoilt, that I'm who I am, but who quite like knowing me. And who love me.

It will be that Nhandi is always a part of us. It will be that we will always miss her. I just wish I had more memories to make with her.