Of memories

I was looking, still, for The Elusive Curio that has dogged my footsteps snd haunted my days and nights. I opened the plastic bag that housed the remains of my many years of solitary play in Barbieland.

Wow, that's it?

There were a million memories in there, the American Bazaar in Lagos where we bought lots of random Barbie accesories, which reminded me of the My Little Pony Shetland and stables bought secondhand there, and that quintessentially American shiny plastic carnival-balloon [it's called metallised nylon, thank you Wiki] that floated above my head all the way home.

At some point a few years ago - I cannot for the life of me remember when - there was a big chance that we'd have to move out of 3/42, Vishwas Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow, that had been my address long enough for me to feel lousy about it. The toys were the first to go. It was time to put them away anyway - Baba I suppose was already at college, and I had outgrown them too. So I packed up everything. My stuff I wanted packed and ready, not lying around creating a nuisance for everybody.

Well, whadya know. We didn't move. I'm glad every day that we didn't need to. Who cares if this is not our own house, if it's somebody else's and we just rent it. We've spent ten years here.

So the Barbie bag was no little Pandora's Box.

That's how love is supposed to be, isn't it? I thought.
You open a bag you had forgotten years ago, and you feel that bittersweetness. You know it's gone, but so what? It didn't last forever, so what?

Forever is here inside me. Whatever else I have or do not have, I have this. The memories are mine.

Even love has no room for hysterics or maudlin [sic.].
We live.
I live.
Every day is a new algebraic sum of my life. It hasn't failed me yet, been positive ever since I can remember.

Move over Godot,

Je suis comme ça. Je fais tous les deux. J'oublie tout de suite et je n'oublie jamais.