OLD MEMORIES, LIKE FINE WINE.......

Distant Mountains/Distant Memories

Some of us are more nostalgic than others, I suppose, but I do believe there is some need for looking back in each of us. Part of the richness of life comes from sweet or bittersweet familiarity that often inexorably draws us back into our past. For just a brief moment of time we can get to be four years old or fourteen and again be that someone special in someone's life--the favored grandchild or the first love or....

On this bitter cold winter day my mind takes me back to long ago memories of a childhood rich with sights, smells, touch, taste that even today can conjure special moments into the present time.

Times spent at my grandparents' home on the edge of a canyon in Redlands, California were always special. Wandering through the orange groves or picking avocados from a dozen trees or so, picking blackberries from the vines at the edge of a ravine in summer.... Crows circled overhead cawing loudly as they chased a soaring hawk; orange juice dripping down to elbows as I slurped through a juicy navel; purple stained fingers and bloody scratches on my arms from a foray into the vines...These and other memories of languishing with ease on a given warm day still are strong and present in my mind today.

"Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me...," my grandmother's flute-like voice sang the words, her body swaying to the music, eyes looking far off somewhere as she played the piano. There I sat next to her, taking it all in, my feet dangling over the edge of the rich tapestry cushion that covered the piano bench. Looking back, I wonder what memories had gotten her attention in those moments.

Then there were the evenings sitting in front of the black and white television as my grandparents watched Spade Cooley, Lawrence Welk, or I Love Lucy. Smoke from their cigarettes drifted up through the light from the lamp between their two chairs as I watched from my place on the oriental rug that covered the floor.

As one of four children in what often seemed a chaotic life, these times alone with my grandparents or just alone as I wandered their property were special. I felt a bond, both with them and with the land that has stuck with me through the years.

Every day we make new memories that become interwoven into the fabric of our lives. The present, past and future intertwine to form a life. Yet we sip at the memories from the past and savor them like fine, aged wine. For they are
special.