Arnold Wilson Writes

I remember when she taught me how to make memories. I had been doing it my entire life, but never thought it as something to be done intentionally; like I had any control over it. It was an autumn day, not unlike today. Sitting on her momma’s front porch in the early evening after school. I was smoking a square and rolling some weed. Scheming on how to get into the parties thrown by the rich kids at The Spot downtown, or thinking how we tore JR’s house up the other night and I really needed to get over there to help him straighten the place up before his mom gets home for the weekend. I got up from the porch swing to put out my cigarette in the old coke can, now a make shift ash tray. When I sat back down she grabbed my hand. I looked and saw into forever through her light blue eyes. I took a deep breath and smiled. Insecure of the emotions that was overtaking me and in a defensive reaction I fixed myself to speak. “Stop!” she said. “Close your eves,” she closed hers. Feeling a peacefulness I relented and shut my own. “Just breath” she said, “I want to remember this forever. How the wind smells, and how it feels to be next to you. Listen to the trees and the cars. The taste of this gum in my mouth. So, just shut up for a minute. I’m making a memory.”