That Bruise or Bliss

Some nights I'm in the mood for something not available in our little local section of the blogosphere. Something dark, but not evil. Something quiet, introspective, something that draws back just at the right moment. Reveals a little, like the peeking of a garter under a silken dress, just enough to tease, just enough to cause wonder like men would wonder about where that garter leads and so I pop from this blog to that blog, seeking this "something" but it isn't there.

Where's the realness

the trueness

the black and blueness?

That bruise or bliss that rests on the surface of the heart?

No one sees it unless it is released

No one sees beyond the blue or the brown or the black of your eyes into what makes you who you are.

It is the sum of the parts and the parts are all those instances in your life you fail to share but those parts are what shape you.

I keep looking for someone who shares the parts that make the sum.

Those odd instances, like the time I thought my friend Shari's face got all quirked and funny looking because she was going to sneeze when she was on that raft at Whitewater in Branson. She wasn't going to sneeze at all, she was going to fall face first into the Whitewater "ocean." That look on her face right before she dunked into the water is sealed like a little time capsule bubble in my mind and it makes me smile every single time I see it and I couldn't see it any clearer if it were a photograph I hold in my hand. It seems to be the symbol for everything I love about Shari.

Like the time I traveled from Harrison, Arkansas to Halltown, Missouri where my Mom and step-dad lived years ago and spent all afternoon and into the dark night laying on my belly digging a deep hole in the rocky clay ground with my step-father and he with his cane. He was using a crow bar to pry loose the rocks and I said I HAD to be home before dark but here we were with the dark surrounding us, still digging out rocks, still preparing the hole to receive that bradford pear tree. He died suddenly a few short months later. Because I was going through a divorce and relocation it was the last time we really spent together.

Like the time, I must have been 3 or 4 years old, when my brother and I were laying on our backs on the merry-go-round at the park looking at the clouds and Mom was turning us softly, very softly.

Why are those things (among others) important? What makes them special in my memory? Why do those images stick out in my mind's eye while so many other moments are lost?

What makes some little moments gel in our minds while others, others which we might have thought should be more memorable are so fleeting?