Upon my exceptionally late aquisition of The Smashing Pumpkins' opus Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, all of my Sean memories resurface. The happy ones, of course. And today, while listening to the album, he sends me a message and says:

"Have you ever slow danced with your hands tied up?" I am caught off guard. I am listening to "Galapogos," a song he sent me long ago about how I made him feel. He won't deny the change, and neither will Billy Crogan.

"Sean, what's even more strange is that, at this very moment, I am listening to a song you sent me a long time ago. Galapogos." He is also caught off guard. He says nothing, and then:

"I haven't heard that song in forever."

"Your timing is, as always, impeccable."

"I don't know why I thought of that dance. I don't even remember it that well. My memory is like a fog sometimes. How do you remember it?"

And I think about it, and then I say:

"I remember that you rarely went to dances, and that I liked you and that you held my attentions all evening, even though I went with someone else, and we we're dancing, and a slow song I do not remember came on, and you pulled a rope out of your pocket, sly as a magician's slight of hand, and you asked me if I wanted to be tied up and I said, yes, and so I was . . . and as we danced, I remember the reactions of friends dancing near us, in our little company corner by the speakers."

And in this obscure poetry that is spilling from my fingers, I see fragments of everything I'd ever written for that man. And I see how absolutely crushed I was when he was so suddenly no longer there. I realize now that I even found myself using a line that Sean and I always said to one another on Marcus this weekend. Sean used to say to me, "Excuse me, miss, do I know you? You look rather familiar." And I would blink at him, coy, and say, "I don't think so. It's possible, though. You see, I have this problem." "Yes?" "This is somewhat embarassing to admit, but I can't ever seem to remember people with their clothes on." He would laugh that sexy, rough laugh of his and say, "Sometimes I have that problem, too. Maybe I can . . . help you remember?" Oh, and would he ever help me remember.

And then Sean muses: "I was hanging out with Laurie and her friend in Santa Cruz the other day, and they seemed to recall a day that involved chocolate and strawberries . . ."

"I think everyone remembers that day. Especially Minichun's blanket."

"Apparently, you tossed them the chocolate. And we took the strawberries, and disappeared, while everyone fought over the chocolate down below us."

I remember all of these days. All of our little excursions. Sean and I did such exciting things! They were subtle and dark and sensual, and only the observant really noticed, but they were so exciting! And everything is so different now, and it is simply exciting to just be with Marcus. I was so completely different then that it wouldn't be even remotely honest to say that I miss those things. I miss them, yes, but I did them then for reasons I would never do them for now.

This life and that life are separate entities. And I look at pictures of myself then and know that I was so happy in my utter misery, except for when I see myself duct taped to Eric's bedroom door do I realize that that kind of misery is not happiness at all.