I love details. I love the tiny parts that make a whole.
I can remember scanning my beloved copies of Nancy Drew novels to see if Carolyn Keene has so kindly added scenes in which the doting housekeeper had prepared meals for Nancy and her father. I wanted to know what they ate, I wanted to know what Nancy wore to the dinner table and I wanted to know the exact color of the sky the exact moment the plate of pork chops was set down.
Detail in memory is especially important to me. I often remember the color of someone's jacket better than what they say to me. It's a confusing concept that has almost become a point of pride for me.
As of late I have been thinking a lot about old family vacation. Maybe it is partially due to homesickness. Maybe it is partially due to a newfound acute fixation on Arizona but these things have been running through my mind in most moments I have free time to think about them a.k.a. these are the things I've been thinking about as I drift off to sleep.
I remember the specific smell of cereal and milk on an airplane.
I remember the freedom of putting gummy bears in an ice cream sundae while sitting around a fire pit.
I remember trying chorizo for the first time in a tiny cafe attached to a tiny airport and desperately wanting to ride in a stage coach in a reconstructed wild west town.
I remember wearing a pink sweatshirt and just meeting the height requirement for the roller coaster in Las Vegas.
I remember the eeriness of Alcatraz and the emotion of Native American ruins.
I remember the vastness of the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.
I remember the exhilaration of finding a deer in the front yard of our villa in Sedona.
I remember the content feeling of eating potato pizza and listening to The Killers in a shop called NY Pizza Company while in San Francisco.
I remember wearing my favorite flowered blouse while riding the carousel on Santa Cruz Pier and dipping my feet in the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
I remember slinging a scarf over my head while eating chocolate crepes in the rain in Paris.
I remember sharing Twizzlers with my brother across our beds in South Carolina.
I've been so lucky in my life and sometimes the distance between these memories and now makes it so easy to push them aside. I want to keep remembering those details but I don't want to fixate on them. I'm always searching for new details.
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