Little Black Books

“Its our life story” he told Megan pointing to our little black book, “we have to write everything down.”

I smiled and nodded, promising to write in the recipes for our homemade pizzas once I put them in the unreliable oven. Megan formed her hands into a heart that exploded into the aroma filled air. The story of our life, I thought; somehow minimized to fit in a pocket sized black notebook. Containing recipes from our abend essen (dinners), grocery lists, and phone numbers for language schools. I can imagine it filled–this black book–with no empty pages left. I can imagine it filled just as I can imagine the pages of my time here filled. All the stories written into the day’s hours with no days left to be written.

What will we have then? Only memories? I can’t comprehend that the time continues to pass, and I will never remember exactly what has happened or how I feel. All that is left is a glimpse of some moments. Perhaps one image filling my head as I think about a day, a week, or an entire visit. Its the blue shirt and black jeans I see when I envision coming off the British Airways flight on May 12th 2010. The picture you have of a white horizon as we drove down the single highway through New Mexico’s national monument on our way back from Ruidoso.

New memories will replace the old ones, and perhaps one day the blue shirt and white horizon will fade to images of weathered, leather, winter shoes and snow topped trees.

But at least this time we will have our black book.

Advertisement