My travels often take me down “Memory Lane,” where I reminisce about the paradise of youth. They’re strange, memories are. They seem to come to me when I do not call for them and pay no heed when I attempt to conjure them in conversation. They’re always there, though, just under the surface. It takes the right atmosphere to bring them out. A walk in nature can always produce them, especially if I tell them to stay away. The stubborn will of memories is like that.
I get talking to myself as I walk, and my mind wanders
quickly into the past. Or perhaps I bring
the past into the present. I’ll see a
beautiful tree and say, “Oh, yes, that’s just like the one outside my kitchen
window when I was seven years old! I
remember it well.” I’ll see a meandering
river and I’ll say, “Ah, yes, I remember that time we had the 4th of
July picnic and I fell into the river by accident. I was soaked!” I’ll gaze into a field at an old house and
say, “Oh, it’s just like the old home I was born in!”
 |
| As beautiful as I remembered . . . |
It doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention to the present,
to what’s here and now. It just means
that the things in the present that are worth paying attention to are the
things that make memories. Television
shows, the latest gadget, gossip at the water cooler, etc., these things do not
make memories. They just steal time from
us in which we might have created memories.
But if we will just throw it away . . .
Ten years from now I’ll think of the tree on my walk
today that made me think of the tree of my youth. I’ll think of the meandering river on my walk
today that made me think of the river at the picnic in my childhood. I’ll think of the old house in the field today
that made me think of the old house where I was born. That’s how it works. They make secret connections in our minds,
like a string of pearls except that this necklace is draped along the shoulders
of time instead of my own shoulders. Each
pearl added makes it that much more precious, and all connect into a priceless
whole.
It’s funny that the only thing worth working for in the
end is what happens after we die. It’s
not money, not power, and not prestige. It’s
the passing on of the memories—the good ones that bring joy and the bad ones
that teach lessons—that ends up being the only thing worthwhile for our
progeny. Instilling a sense of tradition
and continuity becomes of utmost importance as one ages because we realize that
the simple things in life—humble homes, trees, rivers, smiles, lessons—are the
only things truly worth working for, worth living for, worth dying for.
Tradition and a way of life are the memories that are
most poignant as we age, and the older we get the sharper these particular
memories become. These memories of
simple living and the joy of home are the greatest gift we can pass on to
future generations because they’re the only things that last. Everything else falls into oblivion.
Is youth really a paradise? Or is it just the selective memories that
make it seem so? Surely, there were
severely difficult times, if I recall. Not
everything was an idyllic heaven on Earth.
But even those difficult and brutal times seem filled with the wonder of
continuity and purpose and serendipity. So
yes, I say that youth is a paradise made up of memories that we can call up at
any time and bring into our present and our future through the secret
connections on the precious string of pearls.
Guard well, then, these priceless jewels and pass them on to those who
will defend the memories.
