ruminating on memories

Memories, they say, are like sand; even as you try to rescue them, they run right through your fingers, or perhaps they are more like water, impossible to hold.

When your past is so precious, remembering a single moment can break you. It is a devastating joy the extreme pleasure and deep sadness of knowing that will never happen again, bringing you right to your knees. You want so desperately to preserve them in little glass jars, so that when you lift the lids, you can feel it all again: the smells, the textures, the tastes. The sheer freshness of an experience you had never felt before.

I try so hard to hold on, knowing that one day, we won't even remember the memory itself. Precious moments gone forever: a child’s laughter, a child’s heartbreak, a first taste of food. Wriggling worms in a small hand, swing sets, slides, and merry-go-rounds. Loves, passions, friendships, disappointments, and fears all just gone.

Compromised by memory's imperfection, deleted to make room for new experiences, for newer moments. Yet those newer memories don't last; they fade so fast I can't even remember what I ate last night.

But I remember what I ate twenty years ago, at that sushi restaurant, holding a brand new baby.

April del Campo