Some memories are too sacred to be written down. They are too pure, too elusive. Their existence is so thin, so minimal, that if I were to reach out and try to grasp them, trap them and smother them onto a sheet of crisp lined paper, they would evaporate and forever evade me, joining the host of other memories I have forgotten as age and distance have clouded my mind.
I was thinking last night about my Grandmother's house. Now that I live far away, I only visit a few times a year, but when I was a child I was there almost weekly. I started to think about her house at night, the bed I would sleep in, the stories she would tell as she tucked me in for the night, the "midnight snacks" my brother and I would sneak from the kitchen. As I started to go over every delicious little detail, savouring the experience, I realized I couldn't exactly describe the way the air smelled, or the way the floors sounded as we tiptoed across them, or the feel of the pillow and blankets on my bed. I wanted to jot it all down, forever cement it in my memory; but as I did it was as though the memory started to disintigrate, giving way to the exact words I was trying to confine the memory to. So I stopped, dead in my tracks, horrified that I might lose this sacred childhood memory.
Some memories are too delicate, too precious. If I write them down, I risk reinventing them in my mind. The moment I put pen to paper and begin to spell them out, they are instantly transformed into what my adult mind makes of them. What the childhood me saw and heard and smelled and touched and felt, on my skin and in my heart, is wiped away, forever lost; and this new version, the pulp and ink version, is all that remains: a sad replica that is neither true or touching. Some memories are best kept as memories. Sweet, undefined capsules of a world that was, and shall forever be, bittersweetly: perfect.
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
From an Eyelash
One of my biggest problems is that I'm lazy. I stay inside way too much. I'm a stay-at-home mom now (which I absolutely adore) and there aren't a lot of reasons for me to leave the house. Of course there's groceries and errands and all that, but I usually let those things wait until my husband comes home. That way we can do them together.
But lately it's been pretty great outside. Today it's overcast but when I let the dog out to go pee, I realised it was actually really warm out. Most days when I notice the good weather, I just look back at my couch and think, "....hmmmm....too much effort" and let the curtain swing shut as I flop back down into my spot on the couch, permanently shaped to my backside, and soak in the rays from my TV screen.
BUT NOT TODAY!
Today I went and got one of the camping chairs from the basement (the kind with a built-in foot rest) and set it up on the deck outside our front door. I grabbed my baby's swing from the kitchen and put that outside too, right next to my chair. Then I hauled my books off the coffee table, picked up the baby, grabbed some toys, called the dog and off we went into the incredible "outdoors."
Okay, I know it was only my front porch, which is only 15 feet by 20 feet (I'm guessing here) and completely surrounded by a solid wood fence, and my chair was only 3 feet away from my front door, but hey! This is my story, not yours. I bundled up the baby for a nap, wiggled down into my nylon camping chair, tossed the dog a chew toy, and opened up one of the 8 or 9 books I'm currently reading: The Book of Awesome, by Neil Pasricha. (Check out the blog that started it all: 1000awesomethings.com).
I opened the book to where I'd marked it from the last time, using a folded up coupon for earbuds I'd found in a package of cheese strings that were on sale, and read the entry titled: "Getting the eyelash out of your eye."
I don't know what it is about being outside, but it always makes me nostalgic, especially when it's not unbearably cold, as it often is where I live. This time was no different. Reading this entry from Pasricha's book got me thinking about a day like today when I was little. We lived in a townhouse almost exactly like the one I live in now, and it was warm out, just like today. I had an eyelash in my eye and couldn't get it out. My mother was sitting on the deck outside with some friends and I told her about my eye. She told me to go get her a cup of warm water and a towel. I didn't understand why but I went and did it anyway. When I came back she took the orange plastic cup from my hand and told me to lay down sideways with my head across her lap. I was happy to be so close to my mother but I was a little awkward about her friends watching me. I felt vulnerable, unsure about what was about to happen, slightly embarrassed that I was on display. But my mother's friends kept talking, no one remarking on what was happening, so I relaxed.
Slowly, warm water trickled down from my temple and into my eye, washing across it and bathing it in a smooth stream from one corner of my eye to the other. Some of the water ran down the side of my nose and all of it ended up on the towel in my mother's lap. Once the cup was empty and my eye no longer had that poky, scratchy, uncomfortable pain of an eyelash grating itself across my pupil or jabbing itself into place behind my eyelid, I stood up and wiped the side of my face with a dry spot on the towel. My mother rubbed my back and asked if it was all better. I said it was and stood for a moment incredibly pleased and proud of my mother, impressed at her knowledge and know-how and feeling her friends must be impressed too.
Every time I had something in my eye after that, I brought my mother a cup of warm water and a towel and she took me in her lap and took care of it. I revelled in our joint brilliance and was always thrilled when there was someone new to see it.
I have a child of my own now and maybe as he gets older I'll have the chance to pass my knowledge and experiences on to him. One generation after another, linked together by an eyelash.
Happy (early) Mothers Day Mom :)
But lately it's been pretty great outside. Today it's overcast but when I let the dog out to go pee, I realised it was actually really warm out. Most days when I notice the good weather, I just look back at my couch and think, "....hmmmm....too much effort" and let the curtain swing shut as I flop back down into my spot on the couch, permanently shaped to my backside, and soak in the rays from my TV screen.
BUT NOT TODAY!
Today I went and got one of the camping chairs from the basement (the kind with a built-in foot rest) and set it up on the deck outside our front door. I grabbed my baby's swing from the kitchen and put that outside too, right next to my chair. Then I hauled my books off the coffee table, picked up the baby, grabbed some toys, called the dog and off we went into the incredible "outdoors."
Okay, I know it was only my front porch, which is only 15 feet by 20 feet (I'm guessing here) and completely surrounded by a solid wood fence, and my chair was only 3 feet away from my front door, but hey! This is my story, not yours. I bundled up the baby for a nap, wiggled down into my nylon camping chair, tossed the dog a chew toy, and opened up one of the 8 or 9 books I'm currently reading: The Book of Awesome, by Neil Pasricha. (Check out the blog that started it all: 1000awesomethings.com).
I opened the book to where I'd marked it from the last time, using a folded up coupon for earbuds I'd found in a package of cheese strings that were on sale, and read the entry titled: "Getting the eyelash out of your eye."
I don't know what it is about being outside, but it always makes me nostalgic, especially when it's not unbearably cold, as it often is where I live. This time was no different. Reading this entry from Pasricha's book got me thinking about a day like today when I was little. We lived in a townhouse almost exactly like the one I live in now, and it was warm out, just like today. I had an eyelash in my eye and couldn't get it out. My mother was sitting on the deck outside with some friends and I told her about my eye. She told me to go get her a cup of warm water and a towel. I didn't understand why but I went and did it anyway. When I came back she took the orange plastic cup from my hand and told me to lay down sideways with my head across her lap. I was happy to be so close to my mother but I was a little awkward about her friends watching me. I felt vulnerable, unsure about what was about to happen, slightly embarrassed that I was on display. But my mother's friends kept talking, no one remarking on what was happening, so I relaxed.
Slowly, warm water trickled down from my temple and into my eye, washing across it and bathing it in a smooth stream from one corner of my eye to the other. Some of the water ran down the side of my nose and all of it ended up on the towel in my mother's lap. Once the cup was empty and my eye no longer had that poky, scratchy, uncomfortable pain of an eyelash grating itself across my pupil or jabbing itself into place behind my eyelid, I stood up and wiped the side of my face with a dry spot on the towel. My mother rubbed my back and asked if it was all better. I said it was and stood for a moment incredibly pleased and proud of my mother, impressed at her knowledge and know-how and feeling her friends must be impressed too.
Every time I had something in my eye after that, I brought my mother a cup of warm water and a towel and she took me in her lap and took care of it. I revelled in our joint brilliance and was always thrilled when there was someone new to see it.
I have a child of my own now and maybe as he gets older I'll have the chance to pass my knowledge and experiences on to him. One generation after another, linked together by an eyelash.
Happy (early) Mothers Day Mom :)
Friday, 20 May 2011
In An Instant
Springtime in Alberta was such a hesitant yet fleeting moment. It was as if the land was trying to decide whether to stay frozen and flustered or to move forward, to defrost, and to call her friends out to play. “Excuse me Mr. Snow, can Sunshine come play hopscotch with me outside?”
Usually the weather jerked back and forth between snow storms and Chinooks that tripped and tumbled over the landscape, melted every pile of snow still sitting helplessly on the ground, hated by every resident who had stared at it, drove through it, and dug themselves out of it for the last eight months. There’s a reason you never heard, “Hey, lets go play out in the snow” from the lips of an adult.
Then without warning, it was there. Spring had happened. Nature finally got up the guts to snap off the icicles clinging to her and let the green come flowing out.
It was everywhere. Green. Leaves. Grass. The blossoms came and were gone in a week. It was a moment. It was Spring and suddenly it was over and Summer arrived to torch the grass as badly as Winter had cracked the pavement. But it was so fleeting and if you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t see it happen. One day you noticed that the river valley wasn’t so grey anymore, just as you didn’t notice yourselves turning from adolescents to adults. You suddenly saw the flush of health flowing through the trees in the river valley. “Oh goodness how you’ve grown! The last time I saw you, you were only this big!”
I was intrigued by the moment you saw the leaves turning yellow. As soon as it happened you spotted it, a single yellow leaf on an elm ruined the rest of the summer, much like when you found a grey hair on your head or in your beard. You saw that abrupt instant of decay and tracked it until finally, that cold and miserable winter you had long anticipated had arrived and every yellow leaf, once green, had dropped to the ground and had been blown away under a bush somewhere, shriveled and dark brown. “When did we get so old?” you asked yourselves.
Spring was an instant, and if you were lucky to be eighty, and paid close attention, you saw those moments, eighty precious fleeting moments, when nature and life budded into something daring, brief, and quickly snuffed out.
Usually the weather jerked back and forth between snow storms and Chinooks that tripped and tumbled over the landscape, melted every pile of snow still sitting helplessly on the ground, hated by every resident who had stared at it, drove through it, and dug themselves out of it for the last eight months. There’s a reason you never heard, “Hey, lets go play out in the snow” from the lips of an adult.
Then without warning, it was there. Spring had happened. Nature finally got up the guts to snap off the icicles clinging to her and let the green come flowing out.
It was everywhere. Green. Leaves. Grass. The blossoms came and were gone in a week. It was a moment. It was Spring and suddenly it was over and Summer arrived to torch the grass as badly as Winter had cracked the pavement. But it was so fleeting and if you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t see it happen. One day you noticed that the river valley wasn’t so grey anymore, just as you didn’t notice yourselves turning from adolescents to adults. You suddenly saw the flush of health flowing through the trees in the river valley. “Oh goodness how you’ve grown! The last time I saw you, you were only this big!”
I was intrigued by the moment you saw the leaves turning yellow. As soon as it happened you spotted it, a single yellow leaf on an elm ruined the rest of the summer, much like when you found a grey hair on your head or in your beard. You saw that abrupt instant of decay and tracked it until finally, that cold and miserable winter you had long anticipated had arrived and every yellow leaf, once green, had dropped to the ground and had been blown away under a bush somewhere, shriveled and dark brown. “When did we get so old?” you asked yourselves.
Spring was an instant, and if you were lucky to be eighty, and paid close attention, you saw those moments, eighty precious fleeting moments, when nature and life budded into something daring, brief, and quickly snuffed out.
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