Writing is a way to engage with our past, our memories. Narratives are birthed from that which we experience. It’s a form of art that requires a degree of openness and honesty with oneself. Should the writer be at war with themselves, then the work will reflect it. Their view of the world will reflect it.

I write this knowing that I am not an expert, that I am, more or less, nothing. Just someone who is trying to get by, to find meaning in life, and to make sense of my reality. This, to me, is what fuels individuals to pursue arts, and, more specifically, why individuals write. At the least, it is why I write.

The following is a memory.

Waves gently washed over the shells along the shoreline. To my left, there were three women. Two of them, together, combed the beach in search of fossilized teeth, or perhaps some heirloom they had lost. The third woman sat on a spread blue blanket and scribbled in a black notebook; she only paused momentarily to look at the waves, the bay, the boats off in the distance.

To my right, a mother watched her son, a small boy with blonde hair, as he placed the wooden-sifter he used as a boat in the small tributary and chased it as it floated downstream, towards the bay. The boy grabbed the boat just before it reached the bay, ran upstream, released it, and repeated.

As I observed the activity on the beach, I began remembering certain moments of my own life. Memories fluttered around in my mind like moths around a lamp. There was no one specific moment that I could recall. The emotions experienced during those memories were felt in waves that gently came over me, only to be pulled away from me. Dreams I’d once had, those kind that embed themselves into your brain, seemingly crept into reality, creating memories I’d never lived through.

A husky sat in the sand.

blink.

A woman stood with her feet in the water.

blink.

A small boy that resembled me as a child sat in the sand and cried.

blink.

I was above myself, above the beach, looking down.

blink.

It was over. The few visions that I had seen, whatever they may have been, were gone. Each emotion felt during the course of whatever state I had been in was gone. A form of emotional exhaustion followed the euphoria and had drifted over me.

The glow of the sun drifted as dusk began to set in. The others on the beach were gone. The small boy, gone, had left his sifter-boat in the tributary. I watched as it drifted away into the bay.