This morning on my way to work I listened to NPR discuss the report on the Columbia disaster that happened some six months ago. My immediate reaction was, “Oh, I bet the Outlaw is reading that whole thing.”

That was what he left behind, his love outer space and the space program.

Monday, as I was rushing out of work, I nearly killed myself. I was walking rather briskly and was about to put my foot down when I had to do the quick-shift-your-weight-so-you-don’t-squish-something dance. I didn’t fall, because my friend, the Wondergeek, happened to be walking by at the moment.

“Whoa,” he said grabbing my arm helping me balance. “What happened?”
“There’s a dragonfly on the floor,” I said pointing to the bug I nearly squashed beneath my Doc Marten flip-flop.
“Oh,” he said. “Why didn’t you just step on it?”
“I dunno,” I said.

If the TTHM ever leaves, that will be one of the things he leaves behind. Bugs are for looking at not smooshing.

I can’t drive past a male runner without craning my neck, to catch a glimpse of his face. I need to see if maybe I know him. It’s something the cross-country team left behind. I was friends with a goodly number of them in college�and Eau Claire was a smaller town. Whenever I’d see a man running, chances were pretty good that I knew him. Of course, I haven’t known any of the men running since about 1996, but it doesn’t stop me from looking.

I can’t listen to the Meat Puppet’s “Backwater” without smelling Aveda’s Rosemary Mint shampoo. When Shelley and I lived in the sweatlodge one summer, I would constantly sing that song in the shower while “borrowing” her shampoo.

If I smell gin and tonic I think of Chuck and the night he raised the glass so gently to my lips for me to taste. It’s one of the many things he left behind.

Of course, you don’t have any choice in what you leave behind. If we had a choice it’d be all the good stuff about ourselves that we wanted people to remember. But we can’t control it. It’s not always good.

I can’t listen to Miles Davis. A boy I dated loved Miles Davis, and would listen to him all the time. That boy hit me, once.

Whenever I buy Clorox Bleach, I think of Dawn Larson and the summer she asked Jodi and I how we got our hair so blonde. “We bleach it,” Jodi said, talking about the peroxide we combed into our hair religiously. Dawn went home to try and bleach her hair, with Clorox. It never grew back properly.

I wonder what it is I’m leaving behind � what is it that trigger thoughts of me in the minds of the people I have left behind?