A Girl and a Cat, Stintino, etc.

There was a girl and her cat. They shared a tiny flat. This was near Paris, just outside the city. We eventually lost touch, which was a real pity.

Paper bags drove Ylang-ylang, the cat, crazy. She would jump in them, run in them, have adventures in them, like the bags were endless at the seams.

Ylang-ylang drove my allergies crazy. Anytime I visited my friend, I couldn’t stop sneezing. That furry flat seemed as small as the paper bag seemed big.

The girl would tell me, Today, let’s go have Moroccan mint tea! And we’d sit in a cozy Parisian cafe, sipping tea that was way too sweet, but delightfully served from exquisite little tea glasses with golden decorations.

I loved the glasses and the golden table they stood on, more so than the tea itself. When I eventually left my job in Paris, I couldn’t bring the table to Finland with me, but I bought similar tea glasses with golden decorations and packed them in my suitcase.

I recently found them tucked away at the far end of the highest cupboard in my kitchen. Unemployed, or perhaps retired, the beautiful golden patterns still caught my eye. They were timeless, time-evading, or perhaps some sort of a time machine, in a way. But very real, like a concrete memory, winking bonjour at me when I opened the cupboard.

The cat probably isn’t a part of this world anymore, but I wonder about the girl. My momentary friend.

My old school class had a reunion a short while ago, and I didn’t go. But I got the invite, saw the email conversations back and forth, and, on reunion day, I received a text message. Are you coming?

It felt nice that someone thought of me, but it also made me wonder if they were checking up on me: Is she still alive? Are we still all here?

Isn’t that the next logical step from the inevitable what does she do nowadays? How does she look? Has her life been a success?

I briefly wondered what those 90’s kids of my memories would look like today, all grown up, but my curiosity wasn’t strong enough for me to go and gawk.

One of them was in the media a while ago, and I remember him as a 12-year-old with a beautifully tanned complexion. In the picture accompanying the article, however, he was pale as a ghost. He looked drained, even though he’d obviously done well for himself.

Utterly recognizable as the boy who was my classmate for so many years, he appeared to have been existing in some kind of parallel universe where people aged faster. Surely I don’t look as old as he does?

Moments age faster than we humans: as soon as you stop thinking of them, they cease to exist. Memories are memories only if you remember them.

The photos are from Alghero and its shores, as well as the amazing La Pelosa beach in Stintino, Sardinia, May 2024. I was going back in time, my travel buddy said when talking about a flight over time zones. I loved the casual drama in those words!