Everything Matters a Little Bit, Actually

Do you remember large tile floors? I couldn’t tell you who decides their colors, their patterns, their size. However I can tell you this: every single one is perfectly sized for a person’s foot. I can tell you that their little patterns are challenges. I can tell you that you have followed invisible lines and invisible rules to make it from your classroom to the cafeteria as a student.
Can you remember falling asleep on car trips? The sky becoming as tired as you, the colors draining along with your own thoughts? I don’t know where you were going. I don’t even know what song was droning in that volume that barely buzzes beneath your ears. I do know this, however: you looked out into the road and saw the red and yellow lights streak across your eyes in a blurred dream. I do know that your face pressed against the door, against the seatbelt. I know you felt that familiar final turn into your driveway. I know that you woke up with the halt of the car. I know that you pretended to remain asleep as your parents unbuckled you, the seatbelt still stained across your face. You continued to let them carry you up to bed. You let the world go again.
Have you thought about the smell of spring? The smell of summer? Fall? Winter? Something you thought you had forgotten lying right underneath your mind until cookies bake in the oven, with a window open to the side. Birds chirp in every single thought. Little fingers of memory break into your chest as you shut the door behind you, and you smell the leaves and flowers grow back; like when you used to sit on a stone and dig your hands into the Earth, waiting.
There’s more to remember to love. I know that you would plunge your skin into fresh sand at the beach, to feel the cold heart of the life underneath. I know that you felt the static electricity of the plastic slide gripping your skin from underneath you. I know that you felt the warmth of a freshly cleaned blanket, wrapped around you by a guardian. I know that you’ve dipped your hand into a bowl of popcorn, balanced on another’s knees as the screen flows in front of you.
You remember this. I know you do. Or, I know at least, that you can.
We are unique in our un-uniqueness.