I’m awake; my eyes aren’t open yet but the rest of my senses are alive. A silent wind carrying the shadows of salt, seaweed and woodsmoke dances across my face. I can see light on the other side of my eyelids but I’m not ready to let it in. It’s chilly outside but I’m wrapped in a safe, warm cocoon of thick, woollen blankets, soft as only the Irish can spin. My head is nestled in layers of down, clinging to the coolness. From the direction of my feet, the sea rises up and hurdles itself at the beach, short of my resting place it throws wave after wave at the tideline, only to slither back like a giant serpent, pulling the sand and pebbles across the rocks. A snap to my left and a hot sting on my exposed cheek opens my reticent eyes – the dying embers of last night’s fire gasp and turn over for the last time before they go dark.
This is a memory, and only memories pull us back from the moment we’re in to another. It’s not a choice, it’s a reaction. When the memories are good, we hold on and fight to make them last – the sweet perfume of our first love, the opening bars of a song, the soft moisture left over from a first kiss.
These are the windows that draw us to our past. As in all guilty pleasures though, there is a price, nothing is ours without cost. For us who give in to the siren call, there is a dark side – a jealous mistress.
We walk through our lives, sometimes with ease, often with challenge. We look back on our mistakes and shortcomings, we try to turn away and stand tall. We want to be someone better, but just as we crest the hill, we are slowly entwined by the chains of our past, like Gulliver, bound to the land one small string at at time. Our lover pulls us back to our failings, she screams inside our heads, reminding us of who we are, where we belong.
I am tired of this battle. Torn between the steel grip of who I was and the promise of who I want to be – I find no solace. It’s not because I haven’t the strength to be a better man, it’s because I’m too weak to throw off the shackles of the past. The harder I fight, the tighter they grow.
I awake this morning and before anything else, I check my thoughts to see if she’s still there; every morning she lays quietly, smug in the knowledge that I feel her presence before I even breathe. It’s stifling and hopeless. I look out the window for distraction and see the old maple that protects our home.
I watch the wind tear at the remaining few samara. They hang on with everything they have, hoping for their summer strength to return, all the while wishing they were free to go beyond the roots of their home. The wind strengthens as does the resolve of the tiny winged seeds, they shudder and tremble in the face of the wind, then give in, they release themselves from who they were and fall free of their past. Before they’ve a chance to drift down and see the end their lives at the foot of the tree they were born, they catch the wind and fly.
–Billy
