It's so strange, exciting, and also kind of throws you into a little turmoil when something like a simple smell can take you right back to a specific time in the past, almost like an honest to goodness time machine. I've been in the past lately. But I've dwelt with the good times.
Lately on these bitter cold winter days that I feel down to my bones, I have instead been sitting in a lawn chair in my mind, with an herbal heating pack on my stomach to warm me, a long wrap around scarf loosely around my throat, and my favorite green jacket with a knitted hat. It's early morning and I have a cup of lemon ginger tea pressed between my numb hands and the sun is rising in soft hues of pinks and golds over a large misty lake. Tall hills cover all sides, and the marsh is rippling with foxtails and wildflowers growing by the coast. This is the closest to peace one will ever get. The air is crisp and my lungs inhale deeply to catch every bit of it as if this will never last. Because it won't. So I try to program it into every fiber of my being to recall on days to come.
Next I am hiking long wooded unkempt trails and then getting stranded in a mislabeled one. I'm stuck in a horrible cold shower trying to nudge myself toward the back and away from the ripped see through plastic curtains. Muddy colors run down the drain from the dirt, the fishing, and the heated trails. But I've never minded the dirt. I like the way it smells. Like a bare earth that has yet to be touched by human hands or hatred.
When I finally get to the campfire I'm hungry but refuse to eat anything before the pork stew and the cornbread is done that my grandma is making. So I sit as closely and play with the fire. The nearness of the flames makes my skin tingle and burn hot but I try not to back away because I know that now that I'm used to the heat the cold with be even harder to deal with. Just like everything else in this life. It's hard when you're used to something good and worth keeping and then you get thrown back into the cold and change. And you wish for just one thing you can grasp onto. Like blue flames.
The stars have never been brighter and as I eat my hot stew I point out the constellations to myself and count them, recollecting all of their names, just the way that I learned them in school when we went underneath the big white dome that I looked forward to every single year. And then I idly wonder why I didn't become an astronomer. They twinkle and burn and promise me that for tonight they are all mine.
Oh, God I remember smiling. I remember laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe and the muscles in my stomach ached in protest. I remember time going by so slow and so fast at the same time and how sad it was to have to say goodbye to the wetlands and the beautiful, majestic rotting trees sticking out of the water from where it was flooded years ago. I remember my grandparents being so giving and never wanting anything in return as we went to a festival full of antiques and wool sweaters. I remember my kids jacket pockets filled to the brim with candy from the parade and how they waddled home with two bags worth. I remember how my grandpa ended up becoming the packing mule and how aside from some jokes he never complained about it the whole time and always, always was patient and smiling. I remember the early morning walks with my grandma around the cove of the lake and us picking bags full of persimmons to make persimmon bread. We fought huge bees and I did everything but climb up the trees, and that's only because there were no lower branches to get a footing on. I remember my son searching for crawdads and frogs and how the butterflies loved my daughter. They flew on her and just laid right there on her chest and head like she was a queen. It was beautiful. I remember joking with my husband all day and I remember the way he looked in colors of the sunset.
How these times were beautiful. How they shined so brightly and clearly in my memory and heart. And oh, how I will remember them to the day I no longer exist. How I live in these moments so vividly. And how I miss them so much. I want to replay them, breathe them in again. But most of all I want to say thank you to God and all of the loved ones who made these moments happen and count for something worth while.
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