There is a sudden heat wave bearing down on my town, and I had run out of clothing to remove only an hour after getting home from work. Layers of sweat are not the most comfortable outfit, so I went for a walk. (Er, I put some clothes on, then I went for a walk.) It was a lot cooler outside, and I aimed for the cool air near the beach, listening to the new Underworld album. I was on my way back from the beach, meandering through an unfamiliar neighborhood of cul-de-sacs, when the last track on the album, Louisiana, started playing. In the middle of the song, something (presumably something about the song) triggered an intense memory.
This happened while I was taking a shortcut through a dark area between dead ends, a path I'd only ever been on once before during a different nighttime walk years earlier. (It had been pretty memorable because I'd tripped on some unlit stairs and hurt an ankle.) But looking around me tonight, with the song in my headphones, I had a memory of encountering an obviously pregnant young woman who had tried to bum a cigarette off me. I don't smoke, and I'm sure that's what I told her, but I remember her telling me that she was mad at her boyfriend, and going inside her house to get something, with me standing anxiously in her front hall. Possibly worried that she was pregnant and smoking, or trying to smoke. That's all I remember, and I feel like it would be a much more vivid memory if it had actually happened.
So, I'm pretty sure that was a dream I had a long time ago that my brain chemicals decided to access tonight for whatever reason. Almost certainly a dream, confused with a memory of an actual walk, but... argh, the random details are so vivid! The incident itself is hazy, but some parts are so specific. (I'm certain she was wearing a yellow tank top.) I kept listening to Louisiana over and over again, hoping it would trigger more details and settle the reality of it for good, but I just got used to the sounds and started thinking of other things, and the pregnant woman and her hallway remained probably-but-not-definitely a dream. Thinking about how I could be unsure if something had actually happened or not was making me dizzy, but in a pleasant way, and it made me want to write about it.
I remembered I had started this blog tonight not intending to ever enter anything new into it... but here is something new. Because I felt like trying to describe that sensation, and I look forward to someday reading this and remembering that one day I couldn't quite remember something. I guess.
And I probably won't ever write anything else here. Knowing me.
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