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Posts tagged ‘memories’

Sep 2

10 Comments

It doesn’t seem that long ago…

1/28/89

I was just watching the news and they mentioned that this is the anniversary of the space shuttle disaster – when it blew up.  I was remembering that day, 3 years ago, and that I cried.  It’s so strange to think how long ago that was.  It doesn’t seem that long ago.  Pretty soon it’ll be five years and then ten…fifteen…twenty.  Will the nation remember that day?  I will.

We are all growing so old, so fast.  Kate turned twenty on Wednesday and Margaret down the hall turned twenty today.  Christie is already twenty and soon Laurie will be, then Pam, then me.  It’s strange and sometimes scary to think of how quickly time passes now.

My parents talk of things that happened in the past, 15, 20, 25 years ago.  My mom says she can remember where she was when Kennedy was shot.  I can remember where I was when I heard about the attempt on Reagan’s life and about the space shuttle.  Too soon, I will be saying 15, 20, 25 years ago…

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Aug 31

6 Comments

Nannie’s House

Funny how my thoughts somehow
drew themselves to her bathroom.

It seems a place I once read about,
its memory is so far distant,
and not the place whose particulars
I contemplated often at that time.

I can actually see the coldness
I felt there in winter,
through the floor,
in the lukewarm bath water,
resting on that cold porcelain sink;
It was all so old, even then.

And there was always the crocheted frog,
on his lily pad in yarn water
that covered the lid of the toilet.

But I never think of it these days…

A wonder,
since in this one moment of remembrance,
it bursts forth and embodies that whole place,
the entire memory of my existence there.

Then suddenly I realize the
presence of all those rooms,
and the attic where we sometimes played,
and I know their individual potential
for recalling my childhood are great.

I see the vagueness of a porch
with jars and cans and plants.

I know the kitchen,
and the wood stove we
dressed in front of
in the cold morning,
the table we made cookies on,
her freezer against the back wall,
and the counter where I played my
new radio the day after Christmas.

Then the living room,
where two chairs sit and wait,
and granddaddy longlegs crawl the wall;
in the floor is a box fan to lay in front of
on a long summer day;
and there’s a soft and saggy couch
just right for staying up all night to watch tv.

Here’s the room I would stay in
where I lie awake,
and thought and dreamed,
and saw the sun rise the next morning.

There’s Grandpop’s doorway and
I can see his spirit facing it,
sitting on the side of the bed,
smoking cigarettes and just as drunk
as his body was when it lived there.

At the end of the hall I find her room
where she and Becca slept when we stayed;
inside is the dresser with her girdles in
the top drawer, those earrings, Wind Song,
and I borrow her cross necklace to
wear to church in the morning.

Aug 18

4 Comments

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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Jul 18

something more still in its movement

8/21/92

There’s something about a summer evening.  It’s late August, Friday, 6pm.  I climb the face of this day as it fades from my grasping fingers.  With steady, easy strides it passes by me like a long-legged boy heading home.  This day too, like so many days before it, heads home to my memory.

How can I not be carried away with it? – back to a time before work, before responsibility.  I’m young again and spending time as children do.  Those were the years when summer lasted for as long as the school year, or so it seemed.  Every day was a free day.

But Friday was still special.

∞ ∞ ∞

5/3/93

My life seems to me like a movement of water, sometimes a tiny creek and sometimes this huge river.  Always moving toward the sea, toward something much larger, much more still in its movement.

This river slows and quickens on its own.  Often it feels like it’s stopped and then I realize that I’ve traveled ten miles further down the line than I thought.  Sometimes I move and can’t judge my own speed.

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