Time And Fallen Leaves: My Relationship With Memories

The night starts at a relatively slow tempo, mezzopiano dynamic marking. A soft guitar chord progression starts our proceedings. Soon the voice of Lee Su-hyun, the younger sister of the sibling duo Akdong Musician makes its entrance. She sings of “walking barefoot through the memories of fallen leaves.” Evoking strong memories of my favorite, seemingly most impactful and eventful time of year. A time of high school golf season, being victimized by the bullies that made up the team around me. The hope and despair of the single semester of college I was healthy enough to attend. A blissfully ignorant introduction to adulthood, good friends and lovers abound. Heartache of varying degrees. Breakups, time passing, hospital stays that ravaged my early and mid-twenties. “I’m letting go of the people I haven’t been able to forget.” It hurts. It hurts a lot sometimes, does it ever stop?

New leaves will sprout when the time comes

“I’m raising up the people I haven’t been able to be with,” her sultry voice continues as piano and violin motifs harmonize. The pandemic really weighing on my mind. Why won’t people be considerate, I so deeply desire being able to see new friends, ex-lovers, I haven’t seen in so long. Holding on for dear life to the “memories I couldn’t hold onto” as she reminds herself it’s why she’s putting herself back into the emotional firing line. I concur, it’s the emotionally resilient that make the best of their pain. Turning it into better times with far better people.

Her older brother Chan-hyuk opens with similar sentiments. The tempo increases, the dynamic marking raises to a measured by more powerful mezzoforte, and the backing instruments play more of a role in the melody.  “The colored leaves that embrace me, I’m giving my all as I lean softly on them,” he says with a hopeful and confident tone in his voice. Those struggles you’ve been through will be valuable in ways you might not understand just yet. I try to believe his words, ready and finally willing to trust in his experiences as he validates mine.

A crescendo begins to make it’s presence felt, Chan-hyuk takes in the sights and smells of the seasonal debris around him. Damp leaves moisten his shirt ever so slightly and moonlight shines in his exhausted eyes. “I hold onto my hungry heart and fall fast asleep.” I agree. My mind races as I drift off…

The crescendo reaches its apex of a forte. The tempo is a driving force of sound and energy. The swelling is at its climax. My mind visualizes the past as my body slumbers. Will I ever amount? Will these desires become concrete? These questions linger in my mind. Sleep should be a place of solace, but I keep being reminded of my failures. I want to get moving, I want to live. Life is full of amazing experiences, people, places, that I’m missing out on. I try so hard, when will I stop coming short? These thoughts won’t stop, they’re relentless, a tape that replays endlessly in my personal purgatory, restarting at my most vulnerable moments. I just want to rely on myself again. “The flowers and trees of my heart are withering. The memories are buried too deep. I can’t take them out,” the siblings voices continue to be heard in my restless dreams.

Awake and aware of the sudden change back to mezzopiano, instrumentation reduced to only the soft and familiar guitar chords. A calmness permeates the atmosphere. Chan-hyuk turns to me, a resigned look on his face. “It is beautiful that they are asleep in that place, just the way they are.” His sister chimes in “but it’s also sad, isn’t it?”

This duality is possible? I suppose it very well could be. I'm not in a cold sweat panic anymore. Time to take emotional inventory. Now that I think about it, in contrast to the stagnant moments of my life, the mundanity and minutia I’m so familiar with, these memories. They’re proof, aren’t they? Proof that, through all of these times and emotions I’d wished I hadn’t had or felt, I was alive. I AM alive. The fact I even have the recollection is proof. Maybe some of it hurts, maybe some of it feels great, and maybe that life is both in equal measure. And both are important for growth, learning. All emotions are valuable emotions we can turn into intellect.

The soft glow of the morning sunrise reflects off our pile of leaves. Su-hyun looks over at me, relieved, her bare feet brown on their undersides. We had all survived. Our pasts didn’t swallow us whole. They’re not gone, that’s for sure, but the night had proven to us that we don’t have to be afraid of them anymore. They are well hidden, and will undoubtedly sneak up on us when we least expect. When the cycle repeats again, we’ll be ready for them. Or at the very least, a little more ready, each time. In silent agreement I rose to my feet, shoes and socks tossed aside, and walked alongside her and her brother, back into the unknown of daily life, creating new memories to prove to ourselves, we are alive.