Copita
2002-06-04 || 7:29 p.m.

Ok, well it's only fair to warn you all that I intend to get totally rat arsed tonight. I've no idea why. But I've already started on the vodka, because after all, vodka is my drink of choice - no idea why.

But before I do, I've got to write this entry because today seems like the right time to do so.

You know, I want to say something meaningful to sort of explain the timelessness of existence but all I can do is say it as I see it, which is nowhere near as good, but as good as it is going to get.

Anyway. When I was very small I had a teddy bear. I called him ka-peter. That's my phonetic spelling. Whenever anyone said to me, "oh, you mean Peter". I would say, "no, I mean Ka-peter". For years I thought it was a Russian name. I always had this feeling for Russia without knowing why. A couple of years ago I decided to put this name into Google to see what would come up. I tried Kopita first. I got one result. A Russian professor who had Kopita as his surname. I then decided to put it in spelt as 'Copita'. I got stacks of results. I think it is a Spanish word. One result particularly caught my eye. A place in Texas called Copita. I read more about it. It seemed that it was a larger town at the turn of the Twentieth century, I judged it on this by the fact it had a post office then. Today it is an environmental type reserve or something. No one lives there now.

So what has this got to do with me? Well, I've made mention before of my 'past life memory' when I was three. Now I'm going to actually describe it.

I was a man. I was what you might call a 'cowboy'. I remember riding my horse and being at the front of a long line of others. I think I was in charge. I was pretty mean and nasty. We were riding through rough country, it was quite wooded. We rode into a clearing and I jumped down from my horse and was leading him. Suddenly, with no noise whatsoever, out of the trees came a load of native Americans. One stood in front of me, looked me straight in the eye and then shot me.

I remember thinking, as I lay on the ground, "oh my God, it doesn't hurt to be shot. I wish I'd known earlier, I wouldn't have been so scared." That was all I could think, over and over.

Of course, it didn't hurt because I was dead!

For years, as a child, I told people that I wanted to die by being shot because it didn't hurt.

I just wondered that day on Google whether Copita was something to do with it. I was so adamant as a child about the name that it must mean something.

Then when I was 11 I had another memory.

This was a different life. This time I was a woman. I was standing in a small, possibly, one-roomed house. There was a door with a step down into the room and a low set window, along with a fireplace. I was standing by a table with two chairs. On the table was a gas lamp. I was wearing a three-quarter length skirt, a blouse and I was holding a shawl around me. I had my hair in a bun at the nape of my neck.

I was waiting for my husband to come home. He had been gone for a few days and I was beginning to get anxious.

Suddenly the door opened and he stood in the doorway. What I saw is just totally etched on my memory. He was standing there, wearing dark trousers and a dark jersey (which is not a word I use but just seems the absolute right word here) he had some sort of dirt or coal dust smeared over his face. He had very dark, wavy hair and he just looked at me. I knew then what he had been doing and I just felt sick. I knew it was some time in the teens or twenties in Ireland and he had been out fighting/killing. All I can remember thinking is, "well, it can't be wrong because he is my husband and I love him".

What is strange about these two 'memories' is that it is the feelings that are the memories rather than any actual events. Although there are events, these are secondary to how I felt.

It is the way I felt that has stayed with me despite the fact that I am now someone else. That, and the faces of both the man who killed me and the man I was married to.

Over the years this has really fucked with my mind. I do genuinely believe that, as far as I know, I am not being in any way deceitful but maybe I'm mad, how would I know then?

I have no way of ever verifying this. I know no details, no locations other than countries, I remember no names other than Copita.

It could be that these 'memories' are merely archetypal ways of making sense of life and death. The only thing that stops me from fully believing this is that the memories were so personal and felt so real and how can you quantify that? And I know personal, I experience it every day, as do all of us.

I feel teased and distracted by these memories. What is the point of remembering? Especially when I have no way of proving it. But why would I want to prove it? That's the science that we are brought up with isn't it.

What I think is that science can only prove the things it is made to prove. That's a crap explanation but what I mean by that is that there are some things for which science is the wrong tool to use. A bit like trying to harvest a field using a hammer.