“We humans are different - our brains are built not to fix memories in stone but rather to transform them, our recollections in their retelling.”
― Mira Bartok, The Memory Palace
“Memory is the treasure house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved."
― Thomas Fuller
“We can only learn so much and live.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal
Lirssa sits before the sea in lotus, as is her habit. Her hands rest loose, palms up, on her knees. She wears simple homespun. Her feet are bare. A halo of strawberry blonde hair dances on the wind and I am reminded of the silks.
“Padawan,” I greet fondly, and she smiles. I am of half a mind to disturb her meditative state; it’s only ever in her presence that I feel the urge to perform. She looks ready to practice a routine and I feel the stirrings of creativity burgeoning in my chest. We might lose ourselves to the thrill of a little hand to hand, the dynamic catches and throws we both know by rote. Enough of our blood, sweat, and tears have made their way into this sand that the beach is as much a part of us as we are of it.
Instead, I lower myself to sit beside her and look out across the water at the foamy white caps of the waves as they roll ever closer to shore. Still, I can see her out of the corner of my eyes. Her spine relaxes and her legs unfold. She unfurls, like the crimson petaled gaillardia flower which flourishes in the sand, its short-lived blooms reminiscent of cheery little suns.
Lirssa digs her toes into the sand and wraps her arms around her knees. Her starshine smile turns to me. “What are we to learn today?” She asks me this every time. A simple question with as many layers to peel away as an onion. I ignore it. “You’ve been absent.” Guilt pricks at me. It’s true. I’ve been absent from the little house on the cliff and from its white sand beaches for months. Too haunted by the ghosts that inhabit its halls. But today I packed them all away. Neat boxes destined for a new home, one that’s buzzing with life.
“Busy?” she presses. Looking at her now, my heart is full. She’s the sort of person whose bright personality warms even the coldest of souls. You can’t help but be happy in her presence. “That kind of busy?” Lirssa would wink, wink, nudge, nudge if she was that type of person. She is not; she prefers to communicate with the light of her eyes.
Naturally, I smile back. The suggestive expression has me barking a quiet laugh. “Somethin tells me my new beau wouldn’t take too kindly to my kissin an’ tellin.” Her head draws back, brows lifting with open curiosity. I don’t give her time to ask, but instead dangle the lure of more tempting hints. “‘Specially with you close to his sister ‘n all.”
As I watch, her thoughts play out in real time, morphing from a jest to a silent retreat into stillness. She turns away from me to look out at the waters once more. “Yes,” she says. The word almost too gentle to be heard over the waves lapping on the shore. “Close can sometimes make things tricky. Proximity is a delicate balance. You know that, Obi-Wan, from our times on the silks.” As before, the words are simple on the surface. A shadow’s breath between meanings.
But just as she can twist and turn her body, she can contort a word or a feeling into something new. Proximity. The word resonates, striking a dull note deep within me. It tugs at some buried thought I don’t wish to uncover. I, too, can twist and turn. I can fit myself--my thoughts into a box, however painful the contortion might be, if it will save me the heartache. I can dance circles ‘round whatever I wish to avoid. The problem is that Lirssa knows all the steps. She’s been my partner for too long to fall for my tricks anymore.
Her smile returns and she asks again, “What are we to learn today?” How very much like her to cut right to the heart of things. To the heart of me.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. I think of the boxes waiting for me in the house on the cliff and say, “I used to be of the opinion that sufferin was the product of a lesson that needed learnin. That pain was useful.” My heart squeezes painfully. Reminding me it’s there. “But I ain’t so sure about that now.”
“Me either,” she says as if she’s been wondering the same thing. “Balance.” Another echo from earlier. This word, too, rings through me like a gong. It’s jarring in the sense that I can feel the record skip, the needle of my thoughts scratching across the vinyl of my life. The trip of thought lasts mere seconds, but it feels as though I must run a mile a minute to catch back up, and suddenly, Lirssa’s hands are gathering up her hair and drawing it into a hasty ponytail. Where the string comes from to tie it back is impossible to know, it’s simply there, her features no longer whirling shadows of ginger hair. She looks directly at me, bright eyes as unwavering as the suns. “There were moments of pain for us. We have had our lights out.”
She holds her hand up to me, palm out, fingers spread wide. I lean closer, planting one hand in the sand behind her hip and lift the other to press against hers. Lirssa’s skin is pleasantly cool against my too-warm palm. My eyes slide shut as the memory of that afternoon plays itself out in my mind’s eye.
We’d been so angry, shouting at one another from our respective places of pain, stubbornly unwilling to meet the other in the middle. She, taut as a high wire and I, a bed of coals. Selfish little bitch of a girl who can’t see the forest for the trees I’d called her. Inflated, egotistical bastard she’d replied. I can still taste it. Anger upon anger, the heat, the rain. All of it creating a toxic cocktail that resulted in an explosion of power. Two live wires crossed. All the stage lights blew out at once, showering us with bits of glass and filament. The bolt of lightning that escaped me seared through the roof of the circus tent. It was hot, it was loud, and it had dropped me like a stone.
It’s a memory I don’t care to recall, but this is her way of reminding me that life goes on. We found our way through the anger and the pain to the place where love brought us together. The trip and fall of a lullaby winds its way through the remnants of the memory, bringing to mind the lyrics of a song I haven’t played in quite some time. “You taught me the courage of stars before you left,” I sing quietly. A lump rises in my throat. “How light carries on endlessly...even after death.”
Lirssa’s starshine smile returns. I can’t see it, but I can hear it in her voice when she speaks. “You have touched the light.” She leans forward, our faces a hair’s breadth away, but not quite touching her forehead to mine. “You have harnessed it to your will. That light is there.” There holds a world’s worth of weight; persons past, persons future. “It is there no matter how close you are to it.” She draws away, and although her hand remains pressed against mind, she seems to fade for just a moment. “Or how far.”
I don’t want her to leave. I catch her hand, holding it now, tightly, and bring it to my mouth where I press a kiss against her palm. Then I hold it against my cheek, meaning to keep her with me, not wanting to let her go. “But what do I do when I can’t feel its warmth any longer? When I’m left with only the memory of its comfort?”
She touches the fingers of her free hand to my stubbled cheek, sliding them down the length of my jaw. “Memory is another step in the balance. Be strong and flexible, like bamboo. And remember the light is not held in one star, or in one place. Keep moving. The light is there,” she encourages. I can hear wind chimes in the distance, a gentle trio of notes on the breeze. I can scarcely breathe as the reminders command my full attention. “It is all one light, dancing through prisms to form a new experience, a moment in time.” Her voice comes to me now in time with the rhythmic pulse of the waves.
“Moments,” I repeat. Yet another word that crashes through me, only this time it makes me smile like the sun. My heart swells behind the cage of my ribs, so full of happiness that it hurts. Not all pain is useless. Sometimes it’s a reminder of the best things life can offer. “You’re right,” I agree.
I open my eyes at last to study her face in all its perfection. A snapshot, a moment frozen in time. “I wish…” But the sentence dies on my tongue. Wishes are dangerous things and this is the second time in as many months that I’d nearly spoken one into existence. I start over. “You’d have liked him. He throws knives, like you.” My mind is drawn once more to the boxes in the house on the cliff and the memories packed away there. The confession is thick on my tongue, slow to come free. “I think… I think I’m gonna give him your knives so they ain’t collectin dust.”
“Yes.” It’s a simple word. It’s all she needs to say.
“Yes,” I echo. The sound of it is swallowed by the roar of the surf. I sit alone on the beach with my thoughts, one hand in the sand, and continue looking out at the water and the foamy white caps of the waves as they roll ever onward to shore. “Yes.”
-- ((Written with the talented player of Lirssa Sarengrave. I want to thank her for this. Such a treat.))
