I Remember (Exercise #2)

Begin with the phrase "I remember" and start writing. It doesn't matter whether you stick with one memory or list several. YOu can retrieve memories from as far back as childhood (or past lives!) to as recently as yesterday. If you get stuck just keep repeating the phrase "I remember," in writing, until something else forms in your conciousness. Don't even be conserned with the authenticity of the memory. Just record whatever comes to you. Don't stop until you have filled two pages.

I didn't fill two pages, but some book can't tell me what to do, especially when it has "or past lives" as a suggestion for my free writing exercise followed by a damn exlamation point.

I remember your touch on my forehead, as if someone had licked that one spot and a cold wind blew all over me, making that one spot so cold it burned. I remember the rocking back and forth, waiting for the final push, waiting to be blown over. I remember the thin orange carpet I lay on for hours after the service was long over. I remember getting up as if I had been asleep and slinking away. I remember, while I was down there, mouthing words I didn’t know, feeling as as speaking them any louder would interrupt whatever was happening.

I remember touching someone’s forehead and feeling them wobble. I remember feeling as if you were filling me up and it was spilling out my hand into the other person. I remember feeling as if you got mixed up in my breath, so that when I whispered those words, you travelled out of my mouth on to the other person’s face, like a wave crashing on a shore, and he, like a feeble stick planted in the sand, could not stand, and tumbled into the arms of someone standing behind. I remember covering my mouth, feeling as if I had just been a part of something so holy, so holy.