Lovely day
They say time heals all. I’m not sure I know what all is, but I do know that time changes and molds and melds things.
When we are grieving anything - a loved one, a relationship, a job, a missed opportunity - memories and senses can pop up, most often uninvited and unannounced, that keep the grief fresh and make the pain sting.
Sometimes the pain is acute. A song you hear or picture you see or perfume you smell feels like brutally reopening a deep cut that was finally starting to scab. Sometimes it is a just a whisper of a memory that is hard and sad, but then fades like smoke in the wind.
As time passes, things that once were a trigger might be barely noticed, or felt in a whole new way. The timeline may vary and some things may always ache, but there is so much love and magic when whatever it is that used to prompt heartache elicits a whole new feeling.
I remember the first time I went skiing with friends after my divorce. I was still in a place where I was having a hard time remembering the good stuff, as the difficulties of the end were still front and center. I was honestly a little nervous of what feelings I was going to have, as skiing was something my ex and I enjoyed together. So when I was sitting on the chairlift and a flood of love and positive memories rushed over me, I was so happy and frankly surprised but relived. It was such a gift to remember and have access to the feeling of the fun we would have and not just heartbreak.
Just recently I was skiing again, and I always take my mom’s mink on this trip. Aspen feels the only place over the top enough to wear a vintage full length fur and not feel the least bit of anything. Her clothes - and especially outerwear - always had the very present smell of stale smoke and an extra spray of perfume. Like not only did she smoke, but it smelled like coats were put in the closet immediately - just to sit and fester. And so even if she stored that thing at a proper furrier every summer and it should’ve been fresh each winter, every time I saw it, it had the old ashtray aroma. Not a scent I ever favored. But this trip, as I nustled my nose in the collar, it dawned on me I couldn’t smell any hints of her in the coat. Granted it has been more than five years now since she passed, but realized I how much I missed her things smelling like her. I put on extra perfume and had a cigarette in it in her honor.
When I got married, we walked back up the aisle to Lovely Day via string quartet. For years if I would hear that song it would feel like a paper-cut. Not a lasting pain, but it would remind me of what all didn’t go right, a quick reminder of the grief of so many lost expectations. And then one day the song came on I just liked it again. Plainly and easily. Sometimes I think of it like, oh yeah, that was a thing, and other times I just sing and dance along.
Time may not heal all, but if we are lucky, it can grant us a lot of lovely days.
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