It’s the idea of place that keeps getting me. That we were here in this place, and it was such a short time ago. And then we were in this other place, and then this other place. And finally, that last place. And we inhabited those places, and we were in them, and they were in us.
I was in this place, too. And I was in those other places. And, in between, I went back to the New Jersey place, and I stopped at another place, a Virginia place, along the way. And these were places where I lived, or where I had lived. And I thought, holy crap, I remember these places. And I thought, holy crap, I remember myself in these places. And six days later, I returned to the Texas places again and they were the same places I had left a week earlier. But they were different. And I was the same person in these places. But I was different.
The place you’re in can seem right. Or the place you’re in can seem wrong. But the idea I keep coming back to now is this: I think it’s always the place you should be. The place you’re in matters while you’re in it. And it’s important to live that way. It can seem like a place has absolutely no meaning sometimes. Or that it means everything. But most of the time, it’s a little of both. And it always matters.
This Saturday, she’ll be in one place, which is where she’ll remain. And for a whole host of reasons, it’s meaningful that she’ll be there. It wasn’t the meaning I was expecting. I always knew this place. And I’d been in this place before. A lot. It was part of my day-to-day life, this place. But it didn’t mean what it means now. And I never thought it would. It just worked out so easily, like we were brought to it. And I kind of think we were. I kind of think we always are.
She’s going to be in the place she should be. She always was in that place. And she always lived like she knew it. She always lived like it mattered.
And I haven’t always done that. I haven’t always lived like it mattered. But I will now.
TAGS: Mom