Into the Light

Sometimes 

I hear the past rattling along behind me. 

I am startled to look back and see my own arm leading to my very own hand grasping thick cloth and rope, a bag of memories and distant passions and former selves clunking over the torn up sidewalk below. I can feel the pull, the strain of fullness against white knuckles and scarred skin. 

I want to release. 

I want to walk ahead without looking back. 

I want to uncurl tendons and bone tense and habituated. 

But somehow my fingers grasp more tightly with each step when I contemplate dropping this heavy load altogether. 

So I trick myself. 
I shuffle along and dip my other hand deep within the folds to bring into the light (one by one so as not to scare the rest hiding in the dark) each memory tarnished with age and failing synapses. How it’s changed since I saw it last! Softer at the edges or wilting at its core or brighter than the brightest star in this beautiful, blinding hindsight. And so I cradle each notion in my one free hand, I place the memory up to my lips, my eyes, to my heart. I wish it well, I cry, I laugh. I recognize the goodness and the pain. 

I feel. 

And without glancing back at that shadowy fabric I let my memoried hand fall to my side, soft images and liquidy dreams falling to the earth below, a seed to grow into something new, perhaps a shelter in my old age with leaves and flowers and fruit. And I shuffle on, my load becoming light, my path more clear as I spend more time looking ahead than behind. I feel each step, each pebble beneath tender feet and each raindrop and kiss on my upturned face. 

I start to skip. And run. And laugh at the falling leaves and petals lining my way.