Spun Yarn

We share those stories that have been told so many times that we no longer decipher between what really happened and the lore that's ensued. Holding a drink in one hand, rubbing the back of your neck as you reminisce, slapping your knee, smoking a cigarette; these are the things people do when stories are told.

The stories have become so embedded into our history that it doesn't matter if they were once real or not. It doesn't matter because they are part of the remembered past we share together, part of whatever memories we allocate to one another. They exist because we've made them exist, created them together and remembered them alongside one another.

Flashes of children with bangs and big smiles, muddied hands and forts that were built, bikes ridden, games lost, school pranks that brought us to the principal's office. Then, later, there was band, there were the competitions, those days spent in the lunch room and so on, until after school there was more life lived, the apartments rented, the parties thrown, the loves lost, and the children gained. The friendships maintained throughout these changes are those that a person can only accept with gratitude. We close our eyes and let the pictures of our pasts dance across the backs of our eyelids. We may squint back tears for this thanksgiving of a rich life, or perhaps just rest in the contentment of years, and stories, and lives, gone by.

And we continue onwards, creating more, living fuller, breathing.