be kind, rewind

Perhaps it’s a bit Tarantino. Or maybe a little bit Memento. Which means that it’s not quite original, doesn’t it?

The title itself hints at something. I’ve been told that it looks jumbled rather than backwards, and in fact, there is a study which identifies that jumbled words are indeed easily readable. But there is no jumble; the letters reversed reveal the title to be “disavowed” – perhaps harsh, perhaps fitting.

I wrote this post after having a flashback – I call it this only because I have memories, where my mind slowly recollects facts and eases its way into the emotions and my mindset at the time, and then, on the other end of the spectrum, I have flashbacks. Now, it may be just a tiny bit ironic that after explaining memories and flashbacks, that I cannot remember exactly why my brain conjured up the exact state of mind and the vivid images which fuel this post. I only remember that the feeling was sudden, pressing, urgent.

Like a bad taste in my mouth it came to me quick and sour. Like a bad note, it was shrill, grating. I felt its sting sharp and sudden, flashing from searing pain to a slow burn. Its odor made me shake my head back and forth as if to clear the air directly in front of me. And I saw it happening again, in reverse.

There are times you wonder how you got here. Of course “here” could mean anything – lost somewhere out in the winding country roads far outside city limits, or something more sinister; finding yourself lost in a fog of emotional miasma. Like Hansel and Gretel, maybe it’s worth turning around, following a trail of disappearing breadcrumbs backward in time.

The question maybe isn’t more “how I got here,” but “how did I let myself get here;” which, is something far worse and perhaps something to strike from the record, to deny responsibility for, or to simply let lie unacknowledged.