## Once, a man I never knew or met reached out from behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.
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<center>![19F5A719-0113-4D38-A18D-5FC2CB22D8A3.jpeg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPSUYCDpYEWAjBdcKeego1c6c2sCp3HX9iGP1Mf33ZhT4/19F5A719-0113-4D38-A18D-5FC2CB22D8A3.jpeg)</center>
<center>[Source](https://pixabay.com/en/trafalgar-square-london-england-2543172/)</center>
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**I don’t remember turning around. I don’t remember looking at him. I don’t even remember ever seeing any part of him. I just remember feeling the pressure of his hand push down on my shoulder and the way it seemed to pull the upper half of my body backward at the exact moment my foot came off the ground and my hips started moving forward.**
 
*There was the green grass of my grandfather’s yard across the street. There were wispy white clouds moving across a blue sky. There was the hum of boat engines moving across the water not far behind me. And then, suddenly, there was that pressure on my shoulder, followed immediately by a low rumbling sound and a metallic flash that pushed a warm breeze across my face.*
 
Whenever I remember this moment, it comes to me in two perspectives. Initially, I see it from a distance, from outside of my body. A boy is standing on the edge of a lakeside road. The lake is glimmering in the sunlight behind him. There are people in back of him and to either side of him. Who these people are is not clear. The grass and the trees in this vision are green. The house on the hill across the street is beige. It is a very pleasant day.
 
**And then there is this flash before my eyes. Somehow, while I am looking down on this scene from a distance, it comes to me as if something has moved through my field of vision just inches before my face. It’s unexplainable. Then my head turns and there is the backside of a large bus getting smaller as it travels away into the distance.**
 
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***Once*** *is a series of micro memoirs inspired by a [book of the same title](https://www.amazon.com/Wim-Wenders-Once/dp/1935202286) in which Wim Wenders, the German filmmaker, uses a combination of photographs and text to reveal what he considers to be the beginnings of untold stories, which he encourages his readers/viewers to complete.*
 
*Similarly, I offer these moments of my life to you as if they were not my own, as if they were in no way connected to me, which in many cases they no longer seem to be. I encourage you to consider these moments as beginnings, beginnings of stories or travels that you are free to write, live, or complete as you see fit.*
 
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