My Mind's' Eye
I met up with a friend for lunch yesterday. She was my next door neighbor growing up and being only 2 1/2 years apart we played together as children. We sledded in snow, dressed up in our mom's old clothes, climbed trees and played "house" with our dolls. Some of the first photos I ever took are of her and I remember dreading it when she would leave for summer camp.
We continued to stay in touch, even in college. I went to school in Europe and then out West and she went to art school in NYC. We would travel together both in the US and abroad and as we grew up and older we kept in contact. She and I both went through some rough times and we were always there for one another: broken hearts and dreams. I remember the day of my wedding when she took one look at me in my gown and burst into tears. I have a photo of she and my mom together that day and it makes me both happy and extremely sad.
Throughout our relationship we went through periods when we drifted and didn't talk much. Right around 9/11 we hit a rough patch and it seemed our relationship was over and then something happened, I'm not even sure what it was exactly, but we began to reach out to one another and yesterday we finally met up again.
When I saw her I cried. She is still so beautiful, the friend I remember from my youth. She felt the same about me, reminding me that despite how grown up I looked, in her minds eye I was still that high school kid, smoking cigarettes, trying to be cool, not having a care in the world.
I began to think about everyone I love. How do I picture them in my mind? At what point in their lives are they captured in my minds eye? I carry an image of each of them and attached to that image are such powerful feelings. My friend is a wife and a mother but to me she is just my old friend, ageless and timeless.
I kept staring at her, remembering every line and freckle and marveling at how little she had changed, not just in a few years but since our youth. Even though we have aged, she showed little evidence of it and for a moment I felt like we had cheated time.
Ironically, in my second novel, one of the main characters meets up with someone he though was long gone from his life. His reaction to her as he stares at her face and into her eyes is one of utter shock. Not to give much away, but he finds himself face to face with a living breathing memory of a woman who lived in his mind's eye. I try to capture his emotion when he thinks about her and how to convey what is churning inside of him: shock, joy, pain and sadness.
Vampires don't age but they grow and change just like the rest of us. And just like our friends and lovers, this woman still holds the key to such powerful memories and history for him. She exists in both her world and in his mind's eye as time keeps moving, wrapping them both in it's illusory embrace.
We continued to stay in touch, even in college. I went to school in Europe and then out West and she went to art school in NYC. We would travel together both in the US and abroad and as we grew up and older we kept in contact. She and I both went through some rough times and we were always there for one another: broken hearts and dreams. I remember the day of my wedding when she took one look at me in my gown and burst into tears. I have a photo of she and my mom together that day and it makes me both happy and extremely sad.
Throughout our relationship we went through periods when we drifted and didn't talk much. Right around 9/11 we hit a rough patch and it seemed our relationship was over and then something happened, I'm not even sure what it was exactly, but we began to reach out to one another and yesterday we finally met up again.
When I saw her I cried. She is still so beautiful, the friend I remember from my youth. She felt the same about me, reminding me that despite how grown up I looked, in her minds eye I was still that high school kid, smoking cigarettes, trying to be cool, not having a care in the world.
I began to think about everyone I love. How do I picture them in my mind? At what point in their lives are they captured in my minds eye? I carry an image of each of them and attached to that image are such powerful feelings. My friend is a wife and a mother but to me she is just my old friend, ageless and timeless.
I kept staring at her, remembering every line and freckle and marveling at how little she had changed, not just in a few years but since our youth. Even though we have aged, she showed little evidence of it and for a moment I felt like we had cheated time.
Ironically, in my second novel, one of the main characters meets up with someone he though was long gone from his life. His reaction to her as he stares at her face and into her eyes is one of utter shock. Not to give much away, but he finds himself face to face with a living breathing memory of a woman who lived in his mind's eye. I try to capture his emotion when he thinks about her and how to convey what is churning inside of him: shock, joy, pain and sadness.
Vampires don't age but they grow and change just like the rest of us. And just like our friends and lovers, this woman still holds the key to such powerful memories and history for him. She exists in both her world and in his mind's eye as time keeps moving, wrapping them both in it's illusory embrace.
posted by Denise K. Rago at 8:12 PM
1 Comments:
Beautiful post Denise. It churned up a lot of similar emotions for me. What was that line from Stephen King's The Body? "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did you?"
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