I am having one of those days were just trying to get things done, isn’t that easy. My mind is off on one of it’s let just go with the flow, not be bothered by what has to be done or even admit, anything has to be done. I always find days like this difficult because I have two arguments always going on in my head, the one that says you have to keep going or you will find yourself so far behind that you will stress out later, and the other one that just says “Whatever!”. Floaty days have their good sides, as just sitting drifting has a habit of taking me back in to those happy times, those days when the whole feeling of “Whatever” was lived to the full. Strangely there a two days that always come to mind before all others, possibly because they were so early in my life, just before the full trauma of growing up hit. It was the summer when I found myself without a family and no one but me to turn to, but the day I remember is just before it all blew up and I grew up. I know the first part is mixed up and that is the exact date, but I do know it was summer and I do know I was still in Aberdeen as that glorious moment is so clear to see. For some reason that I can’t work out, I was in the city center, it was before 6 am and there was almost no one around. I was walking down Union Street towards the beach, I remember clearly what I was wearing as I had no shoes on my feet, my beloved flared and tatty jeans and a white muslin shirt. The sun was up, not high enough to see past the building and as often in a coastal area there was a haar giving it cause a ghostly haze to the air. I was cold but not enough to regret my choice of clothing and the coldness added to the fresh slightly salty air, there was a feeling of magic about the whole scene added to by the odd spots where the sunlight was just catching the tops of the granite buildings, which sparked gently.
My memory starts just outside the music hall where the bus stop from home was and ends when I am standing on the promenade, a walk that would have taken about an hour, passing all the still closed and quiet shops in an almost eerie silence ready to be broken, but holding on to the last second it could. Along the entire walk, I remember enjoying that feeling of cold that you know is going to be broken by a spectacular day of overwhelming heat from the sun. I wasn’t drawn to stop and spoil that morning by looking into any window or down any other street, I had a goal and I was heading straight to the promenade, as far as I could walk without actually stepping onto the beach. I stood against the constantly rusted and painted over barriers, in one direction is the sea, half hidden but with shards of light breaking through and adding enough light to remove its cold greyness and turn it to a sparkling blue. In the other direction was the city, separated by the links, a vast sea of green that ran up to the first edge of the silver coloured buildings and a city that was just waking. I remember it all so clearly but nothing happened, no one spoke to me, I saw no one I knew, but I remember it because it was the first time in my life that I felt, saw and knew just how perfect our world really is and just how wonderful it was to be alive. I remember standing there for about an hour, doing nothing but looking in every direction but mostly along the golden sands that stretch out of sight in the mist. Sands that I knew for all my life and had explored not just there, but way beyond the spit of land that officially ended Aberdeen beach and changed it into Balmedie. I stood there feeling and remembering a childhood I knew was gone but embracing a wider world that I somehow knew was just as beautiful as the spot I was stood in then.
My memory is brighter and sharper than any of the words I can use to describe it, but it is a memory that I also remember is mine and mine alone, not shared by family of friends, it was my discovery and still one that feels precious and needs protection from the future. I guess floaty days have their purpose, they make you smile and feel those things that although never forgotten are just dismissed a little due to time. Once you have no way of reliving or revisiting those place that made us, the need to hold on grows, but because they are yours and yours alone, there is no one who you can sit with and relate both sides and laugh or cry with. I know I have lost a million things that I have learned over the years but I hope that I will not have to face the day when my memory of the precious is also stolen. Will I eventually forget the time when I first saw the faces of my children, or their first steps and smiles, how much of me will one day no longer be there. I have heard it said that losing your memory doesn’t stop you from being you, I just don’t see how that works, if I can’t remember that day, that feeling, that moment of the birth of knowledge, how can I be me?
Like so much else with this illness, no one can tell me, no one can even guide me, it is a wait and see situation for almost everything in my life. Most of the looses I have already had have always been edged with on good thing, I don’t remember the fact that the memory is gone, well not until someone says something or I read something that is familiar but wrong. Some others though have thrown me into panic as I am aware I have lost something and I don’t know how to find it, it’s just like losing something in the house, the search is just the same as is the frustration and eventually the panic. For today though I am off to float again, with any luck that second memory so far unwritten is still there for me to enjoy too.
Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 21/03/12 – Thank you twitter
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 