Fade Away

Of all the things I see, listen to, touch, taste and feel, I wonder how these things decide to stay - sometimes whole, sometimes a little faded. Do they have a leader who tells them how to? Or do they just know like an ensemble where to step in and step out and form a little shape to fit in exactly?

How do they know how much to stay and how much to fade away? What to keep and what to let go?

Do they have the ability to know that when I grow up it’ll be important for me to remember about that day when my nana (grandfather) and I went for a drive to the vegetable market to buy the yummiest mushrooms and bhee (lotus stems)?

Who tells them that when I grow up, I’ll smile remembering how my father took my sister and me to the park and taught us how to stand on the swing and swing without fear, but with the joy of feeling the breeze on our faces as we catch speed and hear the wind whistling in our ears?

How do these things figure, that as I grow up, the picture may be hazy and faded, but I can still close my eyes and hear my mother sing to me at sleep time? That I can still feel the winter sun on my skin from the time I was 4 and my mother would make me sit in the balcony on winter mornings with a bowl of coconut oil to put on my dry skin.

I wonder how they know, how much to stay and how much to fade away.

The more I try to hold on, the faster they fade away. But when I let them decide, they just know how much to stay and how much to fade away, leaving behind all the beautiful bits either in the physical world or in abstract traces.