“Note to Self: Remember Miranda from New York”
There was this town I lived in once. I was there for
a couple of years. It was the kind of town that moved in circles—not really
forward and not really backward. In the two years that I lived there, almost
everything went in cycles, especially relationships. If I dated this girl now,
I would date her again later.
That’s how it was, and it was fine until it wasn’t.
But this isn’t really about the whirlpool self-gluttony
of Albany, Georgia. This is about the potential that the town had occasionally to
break its own patterns.
There is a cocktail napkin that I found shoved into
the back pocket of my Albany journal. The words written there are a simple
reminder to remember a girl that I had almost forgotten.
Don’t get it twisted. This isn’t a story about a
hook-up or a one night stand. There is no soft impression of lip stick at the
corner; there is no phone number scrawled across the front. There are only
those eight words and some scribbles where I almost misspelled “remember.”
She was out of place—tall and well-dressed. The
heels she wore were high, but she walked well in them, not like the girl I had
broken up with not long before. That girl walked like a clumsy velociraptor in
heels.This girl—this Miranda—could
handle elevation.
She wore her hair pulled back, I think, and her top
sparkled, perhaps. I only remember being struck by the wardrobe. She was parked
at the bar in a dive called “One Trick Pony” which was every bit as charming as
you would assume it would be. I, too, was at the bar—probably waiting for
karaoke to start. This is how I spent my Thursday nights during the break in
one of those cyclical relationships.
The bartender and I had a deal. She would help me
hit on women, but she would also help me keep accurate perceptions of my
targets as the beer goggles kicked in. We had a hand signal that she would
flash at me if I was hitting on a skank. It was helpful. Really.
But Miranda from New York passed the bartender’s
test and we were talking. I don’t remember a word she said, though. I don’t
remember her backstory. Maybe she was dating a cage-fighter (I really think she
was now that I think about it).
She asked me if she could come over. I remember that
part. You don’t ever forget that part. You also don’t ever forget the part
where some portion of your soul wakes up and you sneak away into the night
without that—whatever it was.
So, something like three years later, I wonder why I
wanted to remember her. Why did I make a note on a napkin that I hadn’t seen
since I wrote it? And right now, all I can think of is that she represents
potential. She is one of life’s hiccups. She wasn’t important enough to be
anything else—not a tidal wave or an asteroid or a nuclear bomb. She was a
hiccup, and life is full of hiccups.
And just like when you’re a kid and you get the
hiccups, maybe these other, metaphysical hiccups represent some sort of growth.
Regardless, we will try to move on. After all, hiccups are all very annoying at
the end of the day. So, you drink a little water, introduce her to a table of
rednecks, and sneak out the back door never to see her again. Now she is just a
name on a napkin—a hiccup in the memory of a town.
-Shane
