I sat at the table, just off the kitchen, gazing absent-mindedly at the trees outside the windows. The forest view, which had seized my attention from the first time I saw it, was no longer as captivating as in the past. Trees that once mesmerized me had become common; uninspiring stalks of wood dressed in dull green and earth tone foliage. Leaves, turning brown and muted yellow as the season started to change, were devoid of the brilliant reds and oranges that, not so very long ago, I anticipated with gleeful enthusiasm. Everywhere I looked—inside, outside, walls, ceilings, the sky, the floor—the scene was similarly drab and flat and dreary. That is, until I looked down, where the back of my hands rested on the table.
The palms of my hands sparked a memory from my childhood. Some of the kids I played with had declared themselves palm-readers. One of them—I do not recall who—announced that two normally distinct lines on my palms merged into a rare single line, which had deep meaning. Though I do not recall what he said about the meaning, I recall claiming to reject such juvenile superstition while, secretly, being fascinated by what this rare physical defect might actually predict about me. That youthful embrace of the possibility that palm line superstitions could actually forecast my future have long since dissolved. But that memory at the kitchen table and the vaguely murky scenery around me at that moment combined to briefly resurrect in me the gullibility or, perhaps, desire to rely on “signs” to forecast the direction of my life. That short return to childish naïveté lasted long enough for me to think about a few episodes of my life and wonder whether I should have known to expect them to unfold as they did…if only I had listened more carefully and remembered the predictions or declarations or whatever was given to me.
My senses returned to me soon thereafter. I realize the dull emptiness in which I was submersed as I sat at the table probably played a role in dredging up that odd memory. Now, I wonder whether my mind will replay all these thoughts whenever I allow the world around me to feel flat or stale or colorless.
