High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘memories’

“Ice,” said the voice in my head as I glanced at the puddle.  “Tea,” it said, noticing how the sticks intersected.  I laughed out loud.

The labels go on and on and on, from the moment we learn the words.  I suppose it keeps us anchored in the world somehow.

Then the words trigger memories and dreams.  So although it is late January and I am standing in freezing rain, in my mind I am gazing at fields of tall, green corn on a hot, windless day in mid-July, and it is not rain but perspiration running down my cheeks, and I hear the tinkle of ice cubes in a tall glass of tea and smell lemon.

She was little more than a ghost of her former self.  Each day the sun had been staying longer in the sky, gently dissolving her edges.

And while it was pure pleasure to melt in its glow, evaporating into the free air and sinking into the riverbank’s soil, she had come to love the pebble children with whom she had spent the winter.

It was time now, she knew, to bid them farewell.  And so she sat, the smooth one nestled on her lap, the dog-faced one nuzzling her neck, the little beech leaf curled into a cushion, and spoke.

“Oh, my dear children,” she said, “What a delight it has been to spend the winter with you here beside the singing river.  I know that for you, a winter is but the blink of an eye, and that you will see hundreds of them come and go in your lifetime.  But for me, winter is a lifetime of sorts.

“Remember when I first came to you?  I was water.  And soon I shall be water again.  It is my nature, just as yours is the nature of earth.

“All things change form.You were once one with great mountains.  Someday, you will be sand.  And as you know from the stories I have shared with you, I have been one with great oceans.  I have danced with the sky and made clouds.  I have been rain and snow.  And for this little while we call winter, it was my joy to be ice and to live among you.

“All of us are teachers for each other, you know.  From you, I have learned patience and endurance.  I have come to admire your strength and stability.  Because you dwell in one place ever so long, your stories are deep with history and detail and I leave you enriched by them.

“I hope the stories of my travels have done as much for you.

“I thank you for your hospitality.  Your home here is lovely, with its dancing waters and whispering trees.  They and you will be a part of me forevermore, just as I will be a part of you, for all hearts that share love are joined together in the always of the Great Yes.

“Isn’t it beautiful that things work that way?  We are the children of such grace.

“One more night I will dwell with you, and together we can sing to the stars.  Tomorrow the sun will return me to the air and soil, and I will be gone.  But always, we will be living memories to each other and our hearts will always be one.”

Then the ice ghost was silent and lay among the rocks, glad to be ice for one more day, and glad to have had such sweet companions.

Late on Christmas Day, an old friend stopped by.  The other guests had gone; the house was quiet, the fire glowing beautifully in the fireplace.

As we sat sipping coffee together in its warmth, he reminisced about Christmases gone by—those from his childhood, 70 years ago, the ones when his own children were young, the ones when the grandkids were bright-eyed toddlers.

Maybe it was the firelight, but it seemed to me that his leathered face softened and took on a warm glow as he told his stories.

As he talked, I found my thoughts drifting back through memories of my own, and felt my heart warm with the richness of them.

As the holidays come to an end, as the year’s final days pass by, savor them and wrap the hours in tenderness.  Ease them deeply into memory’s store like precious cargo, treasured gems.

Some quiet night, farther down the road, they’ll drift again into your awareness, releasing their sparkle and glow to bless you with joy made more golden by the patina of time.  And your heart will smile, and remind you again that life is beautiful and good.

In our rapidly changing world, where the latest and newest send us rushing toward tomorrow, tradition carries little weight.  We ride a future-oriented wave; the past is passed.

But once a year, tradition overpowers us, and we take a time-out and remember.

The customs, the music, the foods, the family stories, the decorations all tie us to our yesterdays and carry with them things worth preserving from the past.

They carry us back to our childhood.  They call up images of old relatives who are no longer here, and of places we knew that have vanished or transformed.  They let us look back on our journey and see how long it has been.  They give us a sense of continuity, and let us feel the influence of those who peopled our past, no matter how different our lives may be from theirs.

Our holiday traditions link us with our heritage.  They enshrine the customs of our grandparents and theirs before them, winding back into time, passing on bits of the archetypes that guided and shaped their lives, and that guide and shape ours still.

Our traditions give depth to our celebrations.  They preserve the memories of our past and of our culture.  “When I was little,” we say, to our children as we pull an heirloom treasure from its box, “my mother would unwrap this and tell me the story of Christmas at her grandmother’s house.” And so we pass it on.

And even if we find ourselves alone on the holidays, even if we no longer celebrate them, the memories of the traditions come alive again and enrich us, and let us know we’re never truly alone or without connection. The legends and those who passed them on to us live within us still and are a part of who we are.  And if we’re very quiet on a holy winter night, we can feel their love flowing down to us through time, enfolding us, warm and as never-ending as the traditions that enshrine them in our hearts.

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Before the winter comes, before the first snow, we stand stripped to our essence.

We stand, another round of seasons added to our girth, holding the memories of the bursting spring, the leafy dance of summer, autumn’s grand hoorah as if they were dreams.  But we know they were much more than dreams.  We lived them, and they grew us.

Now, as night descends, we stand with no distractions to keep us from unraveling the seasons past, absorbing their meanings into our beings.

“How rich we are,” we whisper to one another, “and how lucky.”  The earth beneath us sings lullabies and in the sky the first star appears.  Here, before nightfall, joy descends and we are wrapped in gladness and peace.

One day, curious to see what I would find, I bought a ticket to the land of childhood memories.  I cozied into a big, soft chair, closed my eyes, and sent my mind back into time.  I asked myself, “What was I doing when I was six?”  And before I knew it, I was remembering my family’s living room.

There was Dad’s favorite chair, with the pipe stand next to it, and I remembered the fragrance of his Cherry Blend tobacco.  There was the big floor radio, where my mother and I listened to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.  It must have been a big event at the time.  I remembered having View Master slides of it afterwards and coloring books.

Then I saw feathers filling the room’s air and remembered the pillow fight Carol and I got into, and how aghast my poor mother was at the sight of feathers everywhere.

I don’t know how long my trip back to childhood lasted, but it brought back memories I never knew were there:  Details of the neighborhood, and of the neighbors, toys I loved, Aunt Katherine’s parakeets and the doll outfits she crocheted, the big fur hat that I wore in winter, my dad cooking blueberry pancakes, my mother decorating my Valentine’s box with red crepe paper and hearts cut from paper doilies, the treadle sewing machine, my grandmother singing as she ironed clothes, the blisters I got on my hands from playing on the jungle gym at school.  It was a glorious adventure.

A friend of mine who spent September writing lists every evening of things she appreciated during the day says she’s going to spend October recalling good memories.  What a grand happiness practice!  If her excursion into the past is as enriching as mine was, she will be thrilled that she took the time for it.

And if you take the time, you’ll be thrilled, too, and amazed at how much you can recall.  All it takes is a little slice of quiet time and a comfortable chair.  Then pick a trigger:  remember where you lived, or think about your first pet or your favorite teacher, of your first bus ride or the family car.  The rest will unfold from there.

Your mind is a vast country of unexplored memories.  Buy yourself a ticket to it some Saturday afternoon and see the sights.  See if you don’t come back high on happiness, feeling richer and bigger and whole.

Here in the northern hemisphere, today is the first day of autumn.  The hours of darkness and daylight balance in a perfect yin and yang, and the mood of the whole world seems to change.

We have seen it coming, of course.  School buses dot the highways, flocks of geese honk noisily from their great V’s in the sky.  The shops are full of winter wear and hints that the year’s trail of holidays—Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas–is about to begin.  We have begun to change our menus and to shift our loyalties from baseball to football teams.

But today it’s official:  it’s autumn, spectacular autumn, with its grand hoorah of perfect weather and its paintbrush full of dazzling hues.  It’s the time of harvest, the seasons’ crown.

And it’s also summer’s end, and the beginning of the time of turning inward.  It bears the fragrance of fallen leaves and the first wisps of wood fires.  It carries with it a note of farewell that evokes a touch of nostalgia.  Walking in its beauty, our minds are led to reverie.  Bits of golden memories drift down our thoughts like the leaves softly falling all around us.

Autumn is a perfect time for reflecting on the past, for savoring the people and events who have contributed to our lives’ colors, for harvesting the rich memories of the times that brought us joy.   In the rush and tumble of our everyday lives, our focus is so riveted on the future – on meeting the next demand, on getting to the next appointment – that we forget to remember the gifts that memory holds.  Walking in autumn can cure that.  Let it, and discover the beautiful treasures hidden in your memory’s store.  Indulge yourself in the happiness of reverie.  It satisfies, and it makes you whole.