Went out to get some dinner, stopped at the library to pick up a hold, then didn’t want to go straight home. Saw the full moon in the deep indigo sky, yellow and unfocused by the high thin clouds, and just drove around and sang along with a favorite playlist.
And everything around me had a memory attached to it. I’ve lived in this patch of the world for so long now.
That song reminded me of a similar dark night in a different car a long time ago.
Drove through downtown Milwaukie and remembered seeing a movie with an old friend at the theater there on a similar cold night.
That back street? In high school, my friend with the car would drive up and down it, very fast, too fast. How did we never crash?
There’s the street corner I would wait for the bus when coming home from my girlfriend’s house.
I’ve lived here, in this little corner of Portland, in this 3 square mile patch of Oregon and America and the world, for so long now. I’m surrounded by ghosts, except I’m an atheist, so I call them memories.
I’m feeling sad and lost, and eager. Ready for change, and yet tired of changing. Rootless but grounded.
Goodbye old year. So long, farewell, see you never again.
Hello new year, hi, welcome, ready or not here I come.