places my memory takes me back to that no longer exist

Prose, including snippets (mini-memoirs).
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winddance
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Joined: March 2nd, 2024, 10:16 pm
Location: northwest

places my memory takes me back to that no longer exist

Post by winddance » December 9th, 2025, 9:37 pm

the top of desert meadow
there are cactus and some joshua trees
but mostly nothing
we weren't supposed to go to the top
there was a big water tank there
and we climbed up to it
often
a castle in the sky
the highest hump around

couldn't even find it
when I went back,
too many houses and
cul-de-sacs
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
e e cummings

winddance
Posts: 303
Joined: March 2nd, 2024, 10:16 pm
Location: northwest

Re: places my memory takes me back to that no longer exist

Post by winddance » December 9th, 2025, 9:41 pm

20191127_185449~2.jpg
quartz hill 1950ish
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
e e cummings

saw
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Joined: May 23rd, 2008, 7:32 am
Location: B'more, Maryland

Re: places my memory takes me back to that no longer exist

Post by saw » December 12th, 2025, 10:30 am

As much as we would often like to recreate a sweet memory we learn that that place no longer exists, and will forever remain thet sweet memory that lies in our mind's eye alone...i can relate
the death of empathy is the birth of barbarism

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sasha
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Re: places my memory takes me back to that no longer exist

Post by sasha » December 12th, 2025, 11:00 am

Oh yeah... I've got a clear memory of driving along a stretch of discontinued road atop a steep-sided knife-edge ridge, now overgrown; but when I walk it today, there's no sign of a dropoff on either side. False memory? Real memory, wrong place? A dream? Who knows...
.
"If one could deduce the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that He has an inordinate fondness for beetles." -- evolutionary biologist J B S Haldane, (1892-1964)

winddance
Posts: 303
Joined: March 2nd, 2024, 10:16 pm
Location: northwest

Re: places my memory takes me back to that no longer exist

Post by winddance » December 12th, 2025, 12:49 pm

memory
a weave of truth and dream
shrouded in fog
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
e e cummings

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sasha
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Location: New Hampshire
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Re: places my memory takes me back to that no longer exist

Post by sasha » December 12th, 2025, 2:48 pm

dreams
life's memories
replayed on shuffle
.
"If one could deduce the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that He has an inordinate fondness for beetles." -- evolutionary biologist J B S Haldane, (1892-1964)

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mnaz
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Re: places my memory takes me back to that no longer exist

Post by mnaz » December 12th, 2025, 7:04 pm

So true.

About the closest I can come is returning to remote desert places--but even some of those places are unrecognizable at times. The last 2 times I returned to the Black Rock Desert, it was choked by dust raised by vehicles tearing up the dry lake playa.

Reminds me of a video I saw of people trying to find filming locations in California for the 1963 movie It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Some, well actually, MOST, were unrecognizable.

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