Have you ever been hit by a memory so hard it hurts? Like a wave washing from the top of your head to the bottom of your heart. There’s a split second of disorientation as you’re thrown off balance with a deep throb of beautiful pain. In that tiny amount of time you get to live an entire memory all over again. All of it – no matter what the memory. It happens every time you think of it. Every time.
I was thinking of my upcoming reunion in Summerhill this weekend. Then my thoughts veered off course to a memory of going to the same event four (or was it five?) years ago. It was sunny and I walked there wearing my favourite brown skirt that threatens to go sky-high with every gust of wind. It was the first really warm day of the year and I remember sitting in a café with a friend eating the best croissant of my life. No extra butter necessary. I’m convinced it would have slipped right off the pastry, had I tried to add any. I would move to Montreal the following year and still I haven’t tasted anything better. The croissant was a treat for my lactose intolerant but not yet gluten intolerant body. And I enjoyed every flaky bite.
I remembered the croissant, but even more than that I remember the calm of that morning, sitting with that friend, having that great conversation.
But then out of nowhere my body jolted forward to just last year when the relationship with that friend fell apart. And the juxtaposition of that first beautiful memory with the memory of the later event broke my heart all over again. For just one second. And it was all the more painful because of the beauty of the first memory.
I don’t have a perfect recipe for croissants. I can’t even eat a croissant anymore. But I can tell you that it was a beautiful thing – all butter, no jam to hide any imperfections. Even if I never again eat anything so delicate, at least I have the memory of that first day. So it’s worth the second memory sneaking in, and the pain, for a split-second remembrance of a beautiful moment. And I’ll remember it all over again every time I think of Summerhill.
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