on MEMORIES

Memories are an amazing thing. It doesn't matter how deeply buried they are in recesses of your brain one smell, taste or touch of them creates a waterfall of rushing images that immediately bring you back to that exact moment in your life. There is something about a good memory that can make you feel like you have left the earth and that you are inhabiting an entirely different dimension. A good memory is like a long satisfied sigh.

I say this, because just a moment ago, as I was bent over a stemming pot of "Snow Day Soup" in my kitchen. I had just finished browning the turkey, adding the beans and dumping in the carrots and celery when I dipped in my spoon to retrieve the first taste test of many. And there is was. Dancing on my tongue like a long lost friend. I'm not sure if it was the celery or the broth or if the carrots were mixed just right with the other spices but that simple teaspoon of piping hot liquid sent me flashing back into my 12 year old body, standing at the stove at Chelsea and Caroline's house watching a pot of veggies and water bubble and steam as we prepared to subject our parents to another "special dinner" (our parents were very patient people).

It makes me wonder how many memories are stored up in this brain of mine, that one so random can leap out at any given moment. I have no pictures of this event, no ticket stub or scrapbook page to remember it by, just a taste and smell and there I am in all of my brace-faced-greasy-haired glory pretending, along with my childhood friends, that we are some sort of prairie pilgrims that have to make our dinner from scratch or die in the cold long winter (yes, we were a little strange, but we had a lot of fun).

This all eases my mind a little. It helps me to know that I won't forget every detail of Roman's childhood without a picture or keepsake. And although I've already taken over 2,000 pictures of him in his short life it helps me to know that, because of a bad diaper rash, the smell of Destin will probably always remind me of the day the we got snowed in under 14" of snow and that the feel of a fleece blanket sleeper will remind me of the days he was learning to crawl.

I worry all the time that my mind is no good. That I'm terrible forgetful, which I am, and that I'm not all that bright, which I'm really not. But that one taste of "Snow Day Soup" helps me to know that my memories are still in there and that I'm building more. A picture can't do the things that my mind can do and, while I'm thankful for all 2,000 of them waiting to be printed off the computer, the most important memories are the ones that can't be contained on a piece of paper.