Page 14 of The Circle

The memories I retained.

The other house.

The triangle.

The boat.

Belfast.

The lost.

The found.

There’s no real order, rhyme, or reason. They just tumble along, filling up my mind like a foggy dream and making my synapses pulse like sparks off a fire, popping and crackling and exploding into a night sky.

Like a bonfire. Like the bonfire we’re having tonight. It was my idea, the bonfire. I didn’t mention to anyone that part of the reason I thought we should have it is because it will maybe burn up some of the things we’ve yet to let go of. Or, at least, that I have yet to let go.

It’s been fourteen years. Most of them good. No, most of them great, especially when compared to the almost quarter of a century I lived before. But still… some things stay with you your whole life. I think the trick is to keep the things that serve you and let go of the things that don’t. If you’re going to have passengers riding with you your whole life, you should try to make sure they’re not a bunch of backseat drivers.

Which may explain why I like the idea of bonfires carrying away the less useful hitchhikers. It’s like giving a gift to the universe, I think. Saying to the night sky, “All these things that have been mine… I want you to have them back. They aren’t mine anymore. Maybe they meant something to me once upon a time, but now… now I don’t need them.”

Unusual choice for me, maybe—a bonfire—given that I’ve seen enough things burn up and explode in my time that watching shit get torched might feel kind of dumb and… PTSD-y. But, for whatever reason, I like it. Light cutting through the blackness of night and all. I think it’s pretty. The colors. The blue and orange and red all blending together. Colors are my thing. What’s the name…? Oh. Synesthesia.

That’s what it is. I think I have that. My senses are all kind of interconnected, I think. Maybe I should have been a painter. Anyway.

I realize the dress matters more than it may actually, really matter. To anyone else. But to me its colored existence in a world that was grey for a long, long time is a symbol. A symbol for all those times when light wouldn’t shine and life seemed dark. A physical, tangible thing I could hold and look at that would always remind me of a bright, sunny day.

Sunshine. Another thing we look forward to but that, when you think about it, is actually odd to enjoy. The sun is this pretty, hopeful image we all look to that signals the start of a new day. But it’s also a big, orange-yellow ball of flame. It is a trillion-ton nuclear explosion of violence that would destroy you if you came within a billion miles of it.

Beauty and destruction are more closely connected than we like to think.

In any case, when I found the dress I really did debate what I should do with it. Should it be worn again? Should this symbol that represents beauty and hope and violence and destruction all at once be donned again and paraded around in front of the world for everyone to see?

Of course it should. Why shouldn’t it? On this day of all days. Why shouldn’t it?

Knowing the reality of what life is and isn’t and embracing it rather than running from that truth; being able to hold it close?

That is a true gift.

And at the end of what could be called a very, very long day…

It’s the best one I have to offer.