We start with little toys and tiny wonders like shiny rocks. As we get older the toys get bigger and the rocks get shinier. We amass the collections of our life, things as diverse as tools and bells or cars and stamps. Each of us has our own preferences. Yet there is one thing that we all collect. The one collection that is priceless and precious, that we never grow out of or give away…our memories, little snapshots that are frozen in time inside us.
This is the time of year that I peruse my mental scrapbook for the important moments of my life…here are a few from my collection:
1. on a photo expedition, to the Napa Valley Wine country, I was wandering the back roads, not knowing what I was looking for, when suddenly there it was…a giant tree with it’s bare dark branches reaching like a thousand hands up, up into the crisp blue sky…next to the tree a dirt road wound by and disappeared into the hills…I realized as I snapped a digital and a mental picture, that there I was smack dab in the middle of “the road less traveled”.
2. Sitting outside of Café Trieste in San Francisco’s North Beach on a wobbly little café chair. The day was one of those smoky, gray-fog days that make the whole city look like an old Sam Spade movie. I was jacking myself up on the smell of my double espresso taking little sips and thinking about the poetry reading I would be giving soon when I saw my friend George. George is yellow: yellow socks, yellow shoes, yellow jacket and yellow pants and I’m sure yellow underwear. Bright, brilliant, make you smile yellow. George smokes and for years I have been a notorious cigarette bum. I asked him for one. He laughed, knocked one out of a yellow cigarette pack and lit it for me with a yellow bic lighter. I immediately commenced coughing and hacking and to my utter surprise I realized that I had quit smoking without knowing it, after 20 years of trying! Haven’t had one since!
3. Snapshots of the friends I’m with now and my joy every year when I get that phone call from my friend Dorinda. Every year she shows up for a day and I revel in her company. She is a wise and gracious Southern Lady and being with her takes me back to my youth and the belief that all things are possible. We always do something cultural and girly, this year we visited the newly reopened DeYoung Museum and had pedicures. She is truly one of my lifelong friends. You know the kind you can count on one hand.
many, many memories of the little girl in my life....4. Every year I get excited waiting for the trees to bloom, pink tree time is one of my favorite times of the year. I celebrate pink trees and photograph hundreds of them every year. This past Spring I decided to have a pink tree day with that special little girl. We packed a spring picnic with blue and yellow Easter Eggs and set off for Golden Gate Park. Our first stop was at the huge, glass, birdcage of a Victorian building “The Conservatory of Flowers." They were having a live butterfly exhibit. We walked into that magic fairy land as butterflies flew all around and frequently landed on her. (It might have had something to do with the pink outfit and the perfume.) She was so happy and so gentle as she learned to not touch them when they landed on her and used her ticket stub to gently place them on the plants. She was so pure and beautiful. Then we walked in the soft Spring rain through the Japanese Tea Garden, which was filled with blossoming cherry trees. We sat in the Tea house which is over the koi pond and sipped the jasmine tea while trying to draw the ephemeral beauty of the pink trees glistening in the rain. Then I noticed an exquisite, cherry blossom petal floating on the pond as gentle raindrops created little ripples on the water’s surface. Pure Peace.
5. Taking my special little friend to buy her first real ballet slippers and leotard. I felt like I was seven! Long summer days waiting for her at the ballet school, hearing the echoing laughter of the girls bubbling out of the dressing room, waiting outside of a sold-out ballet performance for a chance at a no-show ticket. She was all dressed up and had aching longing on her face that was so poignant that they gave us two of the best seats in the house.
6. Learning to play again while teaching her to swim. Giggling and building a fairy house, then watching her decorate it with fresh flowers and listening to her tell me about how the fairies would be happy when they found them.
7. Sad memories of her crying in the middle of the night as she told me about how hard it was to not have her important people all in one house. Being grateful that she could talk with me and praying for guidance to help her as her sadness ripped my guts out.
8. Helping her to rediscover the magic of Christmas after someone told her there was no Santa. Her excitement on realizing that we didn’t need money to buy Christmas presents because we were blessed with creativity and could make them. I watched her deliver her homemade treats to the neighbors. We visited the reindeer at the zoo and Santa at the mall, roasted marshmallows and brought the magic back.
9. Feeling truly blessed.
Take a little time to look through your memories for they are your true treasures.
Posts
