Flashes
It takes you under and you feel as if you might die, but only for a moment. You realize you are completely submerged in the water, but you cannot stay down there forever. You don’t want to. But there is something familiar about it, something that makes you feel warm and safe and you start to remember things you didn’t even know you had forgotten. You are still alive, even though you can’t breathe under the water, you last, and wonder how long that feeling will stay with you. The wave eventually subsides and you come up for air, breathing heavily, eyes salty red, and body exhausted. Staring up at the bluest blue that is painted above, the oxygen finally fills your lungs. You are free.
Sun. Sun filling up every inch of the sky that stretches on for as far as you can see. Parades and balloons, happiness that makes your heart feel like it is going to burst. Freckles stack up one by one, they stick together, holding on and never letting go. Clusters of them climb every inch of your body, impossible to count. They give you power, each mark another day spent in the sun, another hour laying in the sand. Everything is alive; there are children everywhere. There are beaches and rocks and towels and everything that means summer and light. There is so much of it, yet so little at the same time. Sometimes I wonder how the sun never gets tired of shining. Yellow is everywhere, it blinds you. But you would not rather look at anything else.
Suddenly I'm five again and being thrown into a place where the language was not my own. Seeing mouths open and close. Hearing noises and watching people converse. Feeling like there was a secret club, everyone around you is a member but you are not. Making pizzas with my sister at the place we knew too well. Digging our hands into piles and piles of cheese and mounting it on top of our dough as high as we could. Running through the fog simulator holding our breath. Seeing how far we could make it without taking a breath of oxygen. Pretending that our lives depended on it. Playing with the flip books that showed us how cars were made. Drinking Sprite for the very first time and feeling that tingle on my tongue like it was alive within me. Exploring and simply being children just like we were supposed to. Not worrying about what was yet to come, not thinking about how things would be. Feeling like the whole world was ours because, in that moment, it was.
White. White snow covering every inch of the ground as far as your eyes can see. It’s so bright, it’s blinding. Your eyes wander for miles and miles and wonder how every single snowflake is different from the next. There are millions of them, brilliant and sparkling as the sun hits them from above. Running outside, zipping up your snow pants and pulling on your huge fuzzy gloves. Feeling the sharp cold with every breath; wiping your runny nose on the back of your damp sleeve. Laying down on the bed of snow, surrounded in a blanket of cold. You look up at the sky and watch the flakes fall one by one. You laugh.
Now rain. Rain falling as if it would never stop. Rain like the world would end in darkness and gloom and the sun could never find its way up again. Cuddling up in sweatshirts and screaming as our boots splashed in the puddles outside on the wet sidewalk. Sitting inside and playing cards, praying for lighting so we could go home early. Hearing the thunder rolling through the dark skies above us, shivering as every crack echoed through the emptiness. Word searches and movie theaters. Soaking ourselves in the huge drops that fell without any threat of stopping. The sky wouldn’t stop crying. Why was it so sad? Watching the streets, drowning along with us. Nothing else matters, it is just us and the rain. Would it ever stop? I could sit there forever watching it. Watching the lake, more alive than us all, being fed by those huge dark clouds, filling it up to its very brim. It wouldn’t be hungry for weeks.
