random but not

Somewhere in my head space, there is a gallery of sorts where I have stored the most important, most intense, most unforgettable moments in my life. They aren't memories of events, but brief moments in time - maybe a second or five, rarely more. Most of them are solitary, few have other people around, and even less have other people occupying more than incidental positions.

One or two are chance sightings of something unexpected and beautiful. I remember catching a glimpse of the opera house with the evening light glinting off it while I was on the train pulling into circular quay station. I happened to look up for the briefest second and was struck by the sight. That was one of the things that made me love Sydney.

There are a few that I remember and keep deliberately for the sense of peace and fulfillment I felt then. When I was backpacking through Vietnam and Cambodia a few years ago, we stopped in the mountains for a night or two. I remember a breakfast of the sweetest mangoes I have ever eaten, purchased the day before from a street vendor and chilled in the mini-bar overnight, and hot, strong, Vietnamese coffee at a tiny cafe/house. I could want for nothing more.

There are a couple of moments that maybe I would forget if I could but cannot because they are ones which make my heart ache for what might have been but was not.

And then there are those that are so intense, the first time they arise unbidden, I shudder involuntarily. During a lag in the conversation, or a quiet moment, the memory of these moments almost consumes me and transport me away to a different place and time.

If I were to try and count them, the sum of these moments might number less than my fingers. I don't know because I cannot count them - I get confused as to which are and which aren't - but I suspect that they are that few and far in between. It's odd, but most if not all of them happened elsewhere. Maybe life here is too familiar for anything to hold that much significance for me. Or maybe I'm not meant to live in my birth country.
I should just be a nomad.