Journals are a treasure chest of memories

4/6/00

There are moments when things are just good.  I wish I could keep them like marbles in a glass dish, colorful little worlds of memory. I would pick them up, one at a time, and peer through their insides whenever I chose.  But that is just fantasy.  All I have is a feeble little resource of memories.

I want always to remember, but I know I won’t.  How sad.  I  recently saw the most spectacular rainbow.  It began as the regular kind, somewhat faded looking and soft about the edges.  But when I wasn’t looking, it became brilliant.  The colors were so bright and powerful, so defined, that the sky could not hold it still, and it became two rainbows.  I don’t believe I will ever again see such a sight.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Journaling is memory-saving, not just what you felt and experienced on the inside, but what you saw, what was happening in the world around you.  It is a slice of your past that you may have otherwise forgotten.

I have long had a vague idea in my mind of the perfect rainbow, and I knew that I had once seen one.  But I didn’t remember the particulars of what it looked like.  Reading this brought back very specific memories that I didn’t even know were still tucked away in my mind.  I remember that I was driving from work in Dumfries, and I was about ¾ of the way home.  It had been rainy and was still kind of grayish, but blowing over.  I looked to my right and I thought, “Oh a rainbow.”  It wasn’t much of a rainbow, pretty typical, and I went back to driving.  A few minutes later, I checked back and it was AMAZING.  It was the clearest, most defined rainbow I had ever seen, and the arc went from ground to ground, barely fading as it grew closer to each end.  Then all of a sudden there were two, but the second was not as defined.

I was on 95, so I couldn’t stop to take pictures, except in my mind.  Those mental pictures, my memories of the perfect rainbow, would have been lost without this journal entry. Or perhaps not truly lost, but locked up.  And I am reminded that all my old journals lose their value as treasure chests if they are never opened.  The treasure is still there, but what value does it hold if you keep it locked up?  Treasure is meant to be found, to be held, to sparkle in your hands.  It is meant to be pulled out and looked at.  And maybe, eventually, to be spent.

And so I have pulled out my memory of the perfect rainbow.  And I’ve looked at it again.  And I’m sharing it with you.  I’d say that’s treasure well-spent.

Items of Interest:

More is less by Heather

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My Treasure Chest (pastoralyn.wordpress.com)

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