The Things We Remember
What delights us stays with us
Journal: 29 July, 2025, morning.
I’m thinking this morning about remembering and memories: the things that for whatever reason stick in our mind. So many experiences in a lifetime and while they all are stored in our memories, they’re not all easily retrievable.
Our memories are ours. No one else’s. Two people can go through the same experience but their memories of it may be widely different because we shape our impressions of events around and through our own filters and these are unique to each of us. Likely most of our special memories would not be particularly memorable or special to anyone else but us, and that’s okay. That they were to us and that they gave us pleasure in the doing and pleasure again in the remembering is enough.
These are a few of my favorite memories, in no particular order of anything. They just all delight me.
-A family of foxes lived near our backyard in Colleyville, Texas and late in the evenings around dusk we would see them trotting across the backyard on their way to somewhere.
-Again in Colleyville, one evening when it was almost dark we saw three baby owls follow their mother up a tree trunk and into a hollow where she was nesting. Pure magic.
-Driving the length of Hwy 1 down through the Florida Keys to Key West and mile marker 0.
-Walking through the Mesa Verde Cliff dwellings.
-Sailing at night off the Florida coast—the wind, the salt air, the twinkling lights, more pure magic.
-Driving along the Italian coast to Sanremo. The blues of the Mediterranean are exquisite.
-Drinking Glühwein one freezing cold night at a Christkindlmarket.
-Hiking in the Dolomites. Mountains—MOUNTAINS!—are breathtaking.
-Walking through fields of lavender in Sonoma.
-Sitting on a deck in Ruidoso one chilly morning, surrounded by hummingbirds.
-Walking out on my room’s balcony one early morning in a hotel somewhere in Germany and seeing a courtyard full of classic Porsches (a club rally).
-An evening NYC dinner cruise—the Statue of Liberty, the city skyline, the two blue beams.
-Grazing our way through the Feast of San Gennaro.
-Seeing Lincoln’s hat.
-Boston, all of it (I love Boston)
-Walking a Tybee Island beach one early morning after a big storm and seeing hundreds and hundreds of shells, everywhere.
-Long, long ago, standing outside with my Dad on a frosty cold winter night, listening to geese honking as they flew over, and hearing them fade away into the darkness.
“These are the moments to remember…” That’s a song, right? And some we will and some we won’t (and some we won’t on purpose), but just think of the gift this is! Life, I mean. In general. Just think of the possibilities, all the things within our reach. Utter riches.
I try to make at least one special memory each day. The other day it was finding a moth cocoon, intricately and wondrously made. Sometimes the memory is discovering a poem that rocks my senses and shifts my perception of reality just enough to change everything. I don’t exaggerate here. It’s happened.
No guarantees, of course. All that I can do is create circumstances where the magic might happen. Going with the flow, being open to whatever may come. It’s a sort of delicious anticipation, a recognition that every day is a surprise package, a gift to open with anticipation.
Enjoy your gift of today. Be delighted. Remember.
#journalingalife