Sunshine and Seagulls

My brain has a mind of its own. It does what it wants, when it wants. It comes and goes at its own leisure. It stores names, numbers, songs, the Pythagorean Theorum from 8th grade Algebra, what I ate for breakfast the day I met my husband… It records millions of instances and files them away in some elaborate system for easy recollection, like when I encounter the slightest hint of the fragrant huckleberry. The Rolodex inside my head whirrs and instantly sends me into the sweetest remembrance of a summer’s worth of memories in Yellowstone. This phenomenon, I’d dare call it, occurs whenever a memory is triggered by one of the senses. You know what I’m talking about. You smell, hear or see something and instantly, your mind flashes and runs off on some wild tangent and is revisiting memories you hadn’t thought of in ages.

I came across a new trigger just this past week. It is March and Spring has decided to come early in Utah. Last week, it was 64 degrees. I was tempted to break out my Chacos and let my winter toes gleam in the sunshine. I was walking through the parking lot at work, smiling at the warmth and minding my own business when overhead, a seagull appeared and made its seagull noise and that was it: a thousand memories flooded into my mind of a person I can’t decide if I want to forget or not. I saw her the other day and wanted so badly to say hello. I drove the opposite direction instead, but have proceeded toward her in my mind since. I took photographs of her hands once and often wonder how the rest of her is doing. I don’t know if it’s from regret or unresolve that I miss her. I just know now that on warm sunshine and seagull days, I won't forget.