The Cold Room – Lowry Pei

Lowry Pei – Birthday?? – Grew up in the 50s.

I venture into my own cold room quite a bit.

Sometimes I think that I spend too much time there.

My cold room isn’t necessarily filled with the corpses of memories. I think that they are just in hibernation and each time I visit them, they return to life and I am able to spend some time with them again.

Then again, I’m happy to have the ability to still pull those memories from the recesses of my mind. Who knows how long they will remain. I know as I age, I’ll loose the ability to find them in their normal resting places.

When I crack the door of the cold room and step inside, I think about my days in high school. Friendships…girlfriends.

I think about my college years. Again, all the good friends I had …the couple of girlfriends I had.

I think about my time after college.

My years adrift before my time in Romania.

I think about the “friends” I had in Romania. I think about M and how we met. I think about out time together in RO. I think about our first years in this country together. I think about the innocent first couple of years we spent together…as we really grew to know each other.

I’m happy when I revisit these corpses.

But, deep in the back corner of the cold room, on a shelf, in a box are the really “dead” memories.

I know they are there, and from time to time I will lift the lid to that box and look inside and see them there. Naturally, I don’t spend too much time with them….but I respect the space they occupy on their shelf.