A Photographic View of Life

"I have a peculiarly good memory for visual details, for certain moments. It's not exactly a photographic memory. I can't read a page of text and repeat it verbatim without looking. But I can summon pieces of my past and 'see' them as clearly as if they have been thrown onto a screen in some interior movie theater. There are times when this is more a curse than a gift...but it helps with the kinds of painting I do, and it's not the kind of thing a person can change in any case." --Roland Merullo In Revere, In Those Days.

I have photographic view of life. I remember shirts that my interviewers wore at my first professional job. I remember my first drive up to Estes Park on US 36, and my feelings of confusion at the dry, desert landscape that preceded the climb into the mountains. I remember when my ex-husband and I were dating, what it felt like dropping him off at his house, after our first week-long vacation in Gatlinburg. Not even 2 hours later, he was back at my house because he missed me.

I have a lot of wonderful memories locked away in this head of mine, filled with exquisitely fine details of the people and the places and the feelings that went with both. It is a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing to remember the things that remain true. It's a curse to remember what went wrong and why. I am haunted by a mind that is designed to make sense of every exquisite detail. But I am thankful for what that mind allows me to do. I take these details and turn them to every angle. I construct stories that resemble them; and heal with each word that brings meaning to their happiness and sadness.

Alone

"Look into watery old eyes and see refelected there a past that is impossible to reproduce in this fast and broken-up modern age, an age in which the younger members of the family have struck out on their own to make their fortunes, and ended up living like kings and queens on small, lonely, perfectly landscaped suburban islands" -Roland Merullo, "In Revere, In Those Days"

I live in a fast and broken-up modern age. I methodically go to work in the morning, yearing for the evening. At work I do my best to keep up an enthusiastic facade. Managers love people who look like they are enthusiastic. They love people who look like they'd rather be at work, and tolerate the task of going home. That is not me.

My profession is not a complete fit for me. It is a logical maze of problems, once solved, that only reveal more mazes of problems. It is taxing.

I live far, far away from my family. I live like a queen in that I can pay my bills easily when I am working, and even reward myself with some luxuries. But I live in a condo; my own small, lonely, perfectly landscaped suburban island. I do not have a large circle of friends. I have a large circle of acquaintances. I am beginning to resolve myself to the reality that this may be all I can achieve. At night, after work, I am spent. I have nothing left to give. Maybe if I lived closer to family, maybe life wouldn't seem so lonely.