Zeitgeist (written on 3 Aug 2021)

I drove through the same streets another time. Visited the spaces where I once stopped and rolled down the windows, or rolled them up. Places that are special with wistful memories clinging on to its invisible skin. A turn on the road I managed with one hand and two conversations. 

A traffic light turned amber as if it recognized me.

With most of us, our first times occupy some special place in our memory's velvet lined trophy case. The first time you tried a tequila shot, jumped out of a plane or met someone. We remember details, most parts of it in vibrant colors. Time probably slowed down with us in it, though we weren’t paying much attention. Perhaps we were too busy thinking, trying to make sense of it and take in the experience. Years later, we talk about it, making up for lost details with our imagination. 

People, poems and practice have us all convinced that the first times are special. “First times” will drink up from these narratives, prop themselves higher than those that came later, and subdue them with their romantic reputation. Unaware of this, we raise a glass to the audience and start our stories like the rest; "It was my first time…."

Truth is, our first wasn't always our best. And a lot of details are lost in little gullies of confusion, excitement or simply due to passage of time. The first friend we had is long lost in the pages of oblivion. My first love is a story too silly to recall even in the company of a few drunk friends. Your first job rarely makes it to LinkedIn. But we are creatures of habit. We are desperate to convince us and others that those moments had tremendous influence in making us who we are today and transformed themselves into reference notes for later. Bollocks. If at all it did anything, it simply rewired our brain to believe that it didn’t really matter and there would always be another day, another person, another freshly drawn pail of water to drink from.

Like many others as I waited in life, there were repeats of moments gone by. Each one so special that it made the older ones get a bit fuzzier around the edges. I can readily recall the second and the third in all its detail now, the color of the sky on the day and the smell of the air. Fresh, real. The people, as close as they could get. It doesn't matter on which page of life they are recorded. But it matters that they are chronicled. They were, are important.

And another decade later, some of these would get a little fuzzy too. A story narrated amongst a bunch of drunk mates may or may not feature those moments. However, a few would make it to my memory case. In the absence of a few forgotten firsts, a second or a third would look good in velvet.  Red, green or amber.