Body Memory

A response to a writing prompt (see picture). A young woman returns to a courtyard and reflects on her journey.

When I turned the corner, I could feel my heart lurch. It looked exactly as I remembered. But then again, it has probably looked this way for decades. People come and go, the items in the stores change throughout the years, but somehow this courtyard has stayed the same. Just as easily as I can see this woman walk past me with music blasting from her headphones, I can imagine her in a dress with a thick overcoat, her hair curled, heels clicking on the cobblestone on her way to work in 1947.

I step into the tobacco shop and the same bell rings above as it did eight years ago. The advertisements and promoted products on the counter have changed, but it is just as I remembered. The mixture of hundreds of tobacco blends have settled into the hardwood floors. A football game is playing on a TV high in the corner. The middle-aged man at the counter greets me and I reply. I feel as if he can tell already I’m not from here. I was used to those looks, those moments of realization. It feels uncomfortable and at-home all at the same time. I ask for a phone card, in probably even worse French than I did last time I was here. He gets the idea and pulls out the card I need. We’re able to bumble through the conversation enough for me to get everything I need. He tries to speak in English, while I stubbornly butcher his own language.

I step out into the courtyard again and pause under the tree outside the tobacco shop. Closing my eyes, I breathe in the rain, the smell of the cafe next door, and the centuries of history that has taken place here. Nothing back home is this old. That sense of uneasiness, fear, and loneliness comes over me just as it did before. I sit down on a bench to steady myself. Everything is different, why does it feel the same? Why wouldn’t I expect these body memories to come back to me by being here?

I can see the bookstore on the other side of the courtyard wall. I see my 16-year-old self walking down the street, searching for an escape, drowning myself in the stories rolling around in my mind. Gasping for air, I suddenly feel lost and desperately alone. I am the same. Nothing has changed. There is nothing I can rely on here to prove to myself that I survived. I’m in it still. Forever lonely, forever abandoned, forever sixteen.

In a flash, I hurtle back to the present as my girlfriend turns into the courtyard holding a back of sandwiches and drinks. She beams as she walks towards me, boasting of the conversation she had while buying food. I take a breathe as she sits next to me. I’m not alone. I’m not lost. And I’m not sixteen. I’m one of countless faces who have shared my truth with these courtyard walls. There will be more lost and scared sixteen year olds to come and I hope they will too find their truths and their hearts as they survive and heal and break all over again. When they find themselves on the other side.