I walked into a grocery store this week in a town that I don't go to often. I lived there once, in a world that seems so far removed from me now. It was just going to be quick stop to get green peanuts for a boil. It was 2025 when I walked in, but within seconds, it was 1971.
The throwback hit first with the smell of the store, it was as if the concrete walls had absorbed the decades bygone.
The aisles were laid out the same, people talked in the aisles like they did in the 70's and 80's. I could see my grandmother in a wool cap on a hot June day mulling over the smoked meats looking for a few good pieces to cook her beans. I saw my mother arguing with the meat manager about bologna she bought that went bad too soon (she was a Karen), all of us kids would disappear when she lit into someone.
Grave stands and bright colored funeral flowers lined the top of the frozen food aisle as they always had. And I saw my own kids begging for a quarter to get Tootsie Pops at the register. I went out the door and looked to the left, half expecting to see the mechanical pony that the girls used to ride while they ate those lollipops. It was gone, but not really, the imprint from my memory conjured it again.
I got into the car, Don was waiting. as I opened the door and looked at him, I realized that he wasn't part of those memories. We have been together for 41 years, how could he not have been with me? Am I really old as Methuselah?
I told him how surreal that little run was, it was as if I had fallen into a worm hole. Memories are strange, powerful, terrible and beautiful things aren't they?
I hope your memories, your dejavu, your conjuring's of mind soul and body are as blessed as mine on my favorite day.
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