How Do You Remember?

When do you remember?
How do you remember?
Is your memory triggered by the ping
of the calendar notification?
Does someone else remind you?

When the loss was part of your experience,
your calendar is unlikely to hold much sway.

More likely, you remember by feeling.
A sensation deep within your body.

That sensation may be sparked
by any number of triggers.

A space.
A scent.
A sound.
A phrase between two strangers,
overheard in quick passing.
A particular weather condition.
A laugh.
A cry.

In a heartbeat, you feel it.

The contraction in your belly.
The tightening of your chest.
The closing of your throat.
Tears that well up
in the corner of your eyes.
Legs that get heavy,
suddenly unable to move.

A shallowing of your breath.
A slowing down of your movements.
A familiar pain resurfacing.

Nobody tells you what to remember.
Or when.
Or how.

You just remember.

Your body remembers.
It speaks to you in a language
of encoded sensations,
borne of experiences.

Like knowledge,
it is not something
you derive from an outside source.

It lives within you.

In your joints and muscles and bones
and the fascia that holds them all together.

How do you remember?

You remember by
attuning yourself
to the conversation
that your body is initiating
through only the language it knows:
sensation.

You remember by cultivating
and allowing
awareness of the dialogue.

You remember by
being a participant
in your current lived experience.