Ghosts of our Former Selves & Flashes from our Past

I know many of you don't care for cjane. I understand it. I don't care for her for those same reasons, but even with her narcissism and self-indulgences, I still think she's a pretty good writer. Some of her posts are so thought-provoking for me. I really feel inspired to write after I read something she's written. So, if for no other reason, I continue to frequent her blog. (Even though looking at the millionth picture of her freckled face does get old after awhile...lol!)

So today, she wrote about ghosts of her former self that come back to haunt her. It really struck a chord with me this morning. I was just thinking about something like this yesterday. Not exactly what she was talking about, but a different angle and interpretation of it...

I asked Mark this question: do you ever find yourself completely carried away in a memory? A random flash from a place or an occassion that you are swept away to as if still experiencing reality? Almost out-of-body, but more like your spirit is remembering, feeling, sensing, and remembering an event from the past? I do.

Sometimes these memory flashes, as I call them are so real to me, it's like it's still happening. It's like it never ended and I never moved on, that years haven't even passed. It's strange, but I must admit I love it. I love the fact that I can immediately be transported back to happier times, where a treasured memory is burned so vividly in my mind that I know that yes, it did happen, and yes, it was incredible, and yes, it will always be with me. Mine, forever. I love that!

Here is an example before I utterly lose you in my rhapsody. For a long time after returning from my mission, I would have these memory flashes. For no palpable reason (like I didn't smell, touch, taste, or hear something necessarily) that prompted the flash, I would be transported to someplace/something in the mission field. Sometimes it was the bus stop in Hradec Kralove, where Sister Gerdy and I would trudge through the snow from our apartment to catch a bus to our tracting area during the bleak winter months. The light from a street lamp would glow gold and yellow into the night sky, dainty silvery flakes falling gently onto our dark coats. It would be so cold outside that my nose hairs would freeze, but I would feel so much warmth from within. "Click", the snapshot was taken and it was burned into my mind...seemingly forever. Other times, when I smell wood-burning stoves I am taken back to Olomouc and Ostrava...places out in the country where people lived very humble lives. I remember being invited into their tiny, warm abodes and offered warm cups of herbal tea. See how this works???

Just recently, I've noticed that those memory flashes from my mission which seemed so real to me years ago, have faded and are now being replaced with new memory flashes. Maybe because I'm getting older, maybe because my life is moving forward and I am creating new memories to replace some of the older ones. Some that I've especially been aware of recently have come from Pocatello when Mark and I were first married. Our life was so simple then...I remember coming home from work after 10 pm (when I worked for OfficeMax!) and Mark would be doing homework on the living room floor. His papers spread out, tv on, our cozy little basement apartment so warm and inviting after a long day. All I cared about was just getting home...to him, to our little pocket of life that we were just beginning together. Click.

Also another memory from Boise. Our first house...the little white one with blue trim on Latah street. This is the place that I remember having my babies in. Even though Maryn was 6 months old when we moved here, I still remember her and Avery being so little in this place. Our house was so small that I remember getting up and feeding Avery by the glow of the morning news (like 5 am) in the living room, because there was no place else to go. Mark was still sleeping, Maryn was still sleeping; so I would scoop up Avery and we would snuggle up on the couch and fall back asleep to the Boise news every morning after her feeding. Click.

Now I'm in Twin Falls. Fall prompts this memory. The girls and I would bundle up and take walks to the park that was in our neighborhood several times a week. We had a wagon back then, because they were too big for the double stroller now, but the few blocks it took to get to the park was juuuuust a little too far...there and back. As we walked, I remember the sound of crunching leaves under our feet and tires of the wagon. They would intermittently jump out of the wagon at points along the way...to pick up another pretty gold leaf, or a pinecone, to inspect a bug crawling on the sidewalk, or to race each other giggling the whole way to the corner. We'd play at the park for awhile and then head back home, usually for naps and quiet time in the afternoons when I would put a Disney VHS in the 'ole VCR. Where has that life gone?!? Click.

Even now, I know I am creating memories for me to escape to at some future time. Just the other day, as I was going through some of Parker's baby things to try and sell I am immediately taken back to those precious fall days 2 years ago, when she and I would go back to bed after getting the girls off to school. We'd watch re-runs of Jon and Kate Plus Eight between feedings and naps, while watching the leaves turn and fall off the birch tree in the front yard. Click.

Now it's your turn...what's the one memory flash you had while you were reading this post? Don't edit yourself, just let your mind go...see? It's kinda fun.