the guy in the pink shirt

In the morning when I went for my daily walk, I passed a guy in a pink shirt. A young man, a man about my age, maybe a couple years older maybe a couple years younger. I knew him, or I knew him once. His name is Louis. When I passed him on the street this morning we made eye contact, and I saw in his eyes he didn't recognize me, he gave me a look as if to question why I had made eye contact at all, maybe he had even looked away nervously, shyly. Maybe he thought I was checking him out. But I wasn't checking him out, I just looked at him thinking:

I sort of knew you once.

I knew him from six years ago but it might as well have been sixty. I look pretty different from then. I knew he wouldn't recognize me. I never really knew him that well. he was a regular at the club and a friend of lots of my friends. He used to hang out with my friend cormac, maybe they even dated? But I wasn't even really friends with Cormac then.

In that brief moment of passing, looking at him, remembering that whole strange era of working at the nightclub, remembering it in the instant of making eye contact, and a quick slideshow of him and my friends and the club, it was my life then, that place, I thought all this, felt all this seeing him, and in thinking it I wondered if despite all the changes in my appearance, he might see something familiar and remember. But he didn't. His experience was much less complex I'm sure. He would walk on and think why did I look at him in that way, and probably not think of me again.

It happens often that I see people in east London from that time of my life. I pass them on the street and wonder if there will be a glimmer of memory, but also knowing there won't be. Part of me is disapointed, part of me is happy to have successfully transformed to something else. Thats the funny thing with me and scenes, I am attracted to them, but I only stick around long enough to pass, to fit, thats the part I am interested in, once I feel like I am part of a scene, not long after I want to move on again.

It's never very nice to not be remembered. I used to be great with names and faces. I used to never forget anyone I met. It wasn't always natural, I had to work at it. But nowadays often I forget people. Specifically I forget the people I meet briefly. More specifically I often forget the people I meet after gigs who tell me they liked the gig and then don't talk about much else. There is no sticky factor, there is nothing to make me remember them, but I still feel terrible when someone comes up to me and says we've met and I don't remember. I try to cover it sometimes. And it is true that sometimes talking to someone will jog my memory. I might not remember their name, or what we talked about before, but looking at their face long enough, sometimes I will remember how I met them.

every memory is fragmented into everyone's individual impression. What I take as relevant someone else might not keep and vice-versa. I am always thrown off guard when someone reminds me of something I've said or done that has influenced them that I don't remember. I don't know why anyone listens to me or takes me seriously most of the time. I can hardly remember a lot of things I've done and said. I seem to have a far better memory for my low moments, my bad moments, but I suppose everyone is a bit like that.

For ages when an ex of mine and I broke up. I would dread running into her. For about a year I would avoid parts of town that she used to frequent. I hated the idea of this conversation we would eventually have. I hated even the thought of the awkwardness. Just the thought of it. Isn't that ridiculous? Then two years passed, and when I did run into her it was the most uninteresting non event. It was more than fine it was.. I was.. ambivalent.

But the funny thing about all of this is. The sequence of these thoughts has been inspired by another non event. Running into someone I don't really know. Someone who doesn't really have any connection to my life. That reminded me of a time. A period of time lived that I no longer have connection with. But in that moment of reverie and thought,, the funny thing that strikes me is... his version of the story. Which is of course, no story at all.