Kentucky, For a Moment

Keeneland . . . around the bend, on to the end.

Last year I planned to do Kentucky right. I knew I was going to be in the state for a year-and-a-half (a whole year-and-a-half!), and I planned to see all the sites, to smell the smells and visit the restaurants and hit up all the cultural events. I had until next December, right? I had plenty of time.

Now, here I am, two months from the day I’ll leave Kentucky. Have a I done it right?

I’ve hiked Red River Gorge, wandered around Henry Clay’s estate of Ashland, gone to the Keeneland racing track/social event, wandered around downtown during the equestrian games, cheered myself hoarse at a Wildcat basketball game, bought Mad Mushroom pizza and ate it while I walked down Broadway to my home.

So much, yet so little.

Just one more stop on the whistlestop tour that is my life, destination: unknown.

Egypt taught me to not say goodbye or act as if I would never be back. Instead, I’ve learned to touch and remember, to smell and remember, to hear and see and tuck those memories away.

I could still tell you how that handmade vase in Yemen felt, I could still describe the smell of the narrow street just to the west of Cairo’s Bab al Louk market. I could tell you how the Dead Sea tastes and describe the flap of pigeon wings in front of a statute of Leonardo da Vinci in Milan.

Soon I must take my sensory memories of this place and tuck them away for later, when its time to tell stories of the past.

But for now, I prepare for the next stop.