Memory, in full color.

Approximately four years ago, a girl lovingly folded the chaotically, brightly colored fabric into a very large box, and labelled it "Habilles d'Afrique."

She happily taped it shut, thinking about how Africa, and its fabric, was quite literally woven into her life forever.

She was in love with the continent, and with one of its men. Soon, she would be married, and she thought of how, one day, when they had a house together, and she had a sewing machine, she would reopen this box and make its beautiful hodgepodge mix of fabric into a quilt.

For the bright colors of Africa and its chaos were one of her favorite parts of life there. The boldness of people walking around, without shame, in hot pink fabric spotted with huge orange globes, or navy fabric with bright yellow paper doll stick people holding hands, over and over, or indigo blue stripes--sometimes even horizontal--right across the butt.

Yes, even this.

Such fashion freedom and abandon. Such a bright, bold colorful way of life.

A marked contrast to her primarily black, white and gray wardrobe now.

She knew that this quilt would be a constant reminder of this boldness, and of her own in loving it.

That the memories of this fabric, that she had worn as a Peace Corps volunteer, would keep her warm in her own climate, which was much cooler than that in Africa, not only with its weight, but with its memories, of kindness, of happiness, of laughter, of the warmth of the African people.

This is what she thought as she taped shut the box, and prepared to move into the one-bedroom apartment that would soon become her first home for two.

But the next time she opened the box, it wasn't in a one bedroom apartment for two. It was in a studio apartment for one.

It was yesterday.

Because her goal with this move, in accordance with feng shui and other principles of common sense, spatial law and the cost per square foot of rental real estate in D.C., is to lighten up.

Purge and destroy, she is calling it to herself.

And there is an intern in her office this summer, from Ghana, who wears and makes African clothing. She would love the clothes and fabric, she says, with great enthusiasm, and it is clear that this is where they must go.

For if there is one thing that living in poverty will give you, it is an inability to let things go to waste.

So she must prepare the clothing for the intern who will make good use of them.

She looks at the closed box for a good long time, and takes a deep breath before opening it. And as the colors spill out, because she has steeled herself in preparation, she does okay.

She quickly jams the clothing and the chaotic colors into a bag for the intern, hardly looking, certainly not breathing in the indescribable smell of Africa and her former life there ingrained permanently, despite repeated washings, in its threads.

Until she finds the t-shirt.

The limp, yellow t-shirt worn and torn and raggedy from too many handwashings and endless wears. The t-shirt that says CEG Tchaourou, and has a random image of a horse for reasons she has never understood, as there are no horses in Tchaourou, and cost approximately $4.

The t-shirt she bought with ease, from the school where she taught, on her monthly teacher salary of $200, while some students had to drop out of school due to their inability to pay for this standard issue, required gym shirt.

Into this t-shirt, she sobs.

She isn't sure what it is about this t-shirt that makes it different from the frumpy teacher dresses she just went through, or the sassy hot pink and blue three piece suits she smartly had made when she moved for her big-time third year job in the capital.

She is not sure why it is different, this limp, yellow t-shirt that says CEG Tchaourou, in her hands, thin and transparent from wear, wet from her tears.

Then she remembers, the girl who packed the box, the girl who loved this school and its students and her life and her service so much that she had worn this emblem of it threadbare, even after her return home like a security blanket, tying her to that life, and eventually saved it, even when its neckline was barely holding on and was frayed beyond recognition.

Because it is obvious that that girl saved this shirt not out of utility, but out of love, sure that seeing it again would bring great pride and fond memories.

And that the girl that retrieved it, while she desperately wants to see Africa in black and white now, to make this easier, free from attachment. To just erase the experience from her mind, telling herself that it was all a lie, a farce, in the past and insignificant, a mere vacation or adventure, over now.

This girl knows, sobbing into this worn, pale yellow t-shirt with a random horse on it, that her memories cannot be forever lodged in black and white.

That they must eventually return to full color, and to every shade on the spectrum, as chaotic as the colors of this fabric jumping out of its lovingly packed box.

That while these clothes are no longer a fit for the girl that opened the box, not in the way that they were to the girl who packed it, the colors that she once loved to wear somehow, always will be.

And that she will have to somehow learn to see them again, through her tears, and through the darkness of her recent past.

Because she knows that it's true, what her very wise aunt once told her, "That we live in moments, not in days or weeks or months or years. We live in moments."

And that like this fabric, among the dark patches that mark its contrast, there are bright moments to explore, to regain, to reconcile, to remember.

That they cannot be as easily discarded as a pale yellow t-shirt frayed from wear, no matter how much she might wish it.