Side story: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I love what Focus has done for movies. Edgy, strange, quirky films. Lost in Translation. Dead Flowers. Virgin Suicides. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Great movie, Spotless, but this time it was a bit too close to real life. I have to admit I was looking forward to watching Jim Carrey do his best not to mug at the camera this morning. I was still feeling sleep deprived from the dinner party Saturday night/Sunday morning, still felt the after effects of that big dinner of leftovers and the bottle of wine from last night. What I really wanted to do was get up and sit by the side of the road and watch you drive by but thought to myself that on a cold morning, albiet a crisp, beautiful fall morning, it would look as pathetic as it sounded at 7:15 in the morning. So I let it pass, stayed in bed and watched a movie, instead.

But that takes me to the premise of the movie. Would you employ an agency, a doctor, who could promise to take away the bad or not so bad memories of your life? I know that there are plenty of bad ones out there, but so far I feel somewhat blessed in that mine seem to be the fairly standard kind for a fifty year old man. Strange relatives, bad marriages, heartache and heartbreak, shitty jobs, untrue friends, faulty products, bad dates, all of that. Basic stuff. No tsunamis, no witness of heavy death, no invasion of my body cavities, none of that horrible stuff that I would want to see erased and gone forever.

No, this morning I was willing to race down to Gorst and sit in the wildlife viewing parking lot just to see you race by at fifty five miles an hour. And what would have been the reason for that? Memories.

After that film was over I was thanking god that there wasn't anything like doctor's process available in real life, well, outside of an extra bottle or two of wine on the weekends. I learned long ago that that doesn't help either, never has, in fact it enhances those memories by making the unattainable even moreso. Amazing how the lines in your face and your age and our differences and all the issues and problems we had all go away with that third or fourth glass of Merlot. Funny how the problems of time and lies and falsehoods and deception and treachery all drop way when I uncork that second bottle.

I finished up that movie and thought, "well done", but was thankful that it was only a fantasy. When I work through the memories of our intertwined lives I am amazed at how many references I come across that lead me back to you. It's sort of like that Kevin Bacon game. I can do damn near anything and somehow I can link it back to you. I suppose that's not too hard to do when I'm working the branch or cooking in my kitchen or second handing or birding, but driving to Tacoma? Yep. Walking the aisles of Freddies? Sure. Looking through the latest selections in our Books to Go collection? Why not? Memories of you jump out at me like surprise party guests all the time. Most are sweet, some are not. Sometimes I get so caught up in negative memories of you that I want to spit, but mostly, when I think of you, I think of pleasant things and opportunity lost.

So, why would I want to lose that? Can't think of a reason. But dwell on it? I try not to, and most times I'm successful. Can't think of you and follow a recipe. Can't think of you and answer a reference question. Can't think of you while I'm working through conversations at parties or in supermarkets and with friends on the phone. Nope, most of the time I leave you alone, alone with your busy life. I like to know, though, that when I find something as innocuous as a cookbook and I open it and there on the inside endpages I see a photo of a couple of pears side by side that I can feel something good. Something that takes me back to a moment or two we shared. Then I can finger that book and find something to make and move on with my day.

It's like that moment when I decided to just think of you this morning and instead of racing out I put on a movie instead. It wasn't as if our memories were no longer worth honoring by racing out and posting signs on Old Clifton Road or waving at you by the side of the highway. No, I think that those memories of ours were better served by watching something fresh and new in bed and thinking of responses to that long and drawn out conversation I had on Sunday morning. Memories of you guided me that morning, and the best ones told me to "take it slow".

I know that we did. And that is my favorite memory of them all.

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