When your life is nothing but memories, you start to pay more attention to the shape and form of memory. What does a memory look like?  It’s not golden and slightly blurred like in movies. It’s not black and white, or full of shadows. Maybe the colours are a little muted, but not all of them.  Certainly not my indigo rug. That’s as bright as ever. Emotions are boiled down and vivid like a strong tea.  

I reminisce, always, about going into the backyard, which was bounded by a big wooden fence.  On the other side of that fence there were some cows, and then there was some property development and endless construction, and then there were clean brick houses with white driveways, where the cows used to be.  I climbed the fence and could feel how the dampness had crept into the wood. I went out into that field and touched the dried husks of crape myrtle. Be here now.  Be here now. I said to myself. But see, it’s already gone. I only had one chance to be here now, and I don’t know which chance that was. I remember the thing a thousand times, but when was it now?