A few years ago I decided to slow down and live every minute of my life. It took a lot of practice to learn to pay attention to all the little details, to let every minute develop fully, to make sure each day has something in it worth remembering. I still slip up once in a while, and let time zip by. But such was not the case this past holiday weekend. By the time I got to Monday night, immersed in the sensory feast of a bluegrass concert, I slowed way down, and focused to imprint the memories in long term storage. I did so much in the last three days, it felt like it must have taken a week or more. I spent hours outside, making visible changes in three different flower beds. I made great progress rebuilding a relationship that until recently I thought was lost forever. I ate only wonderful, real food, no junk. I had a perfect morning at the beach. I got to hang out with the crew around a bonfire. I started creative projects, and collected salvaged materials for another furniture piece that I can't wait to start. And I capped it off with dinner al fresco with a terrific friend and a trip with her to see Steve Martin, Edie Brickell, and the Steep Canyon Rangers. Except the last part, nearly all was low cost or free. And every minute of it was worth living, and worth remembering.
When I think back on my own childhood, it seemed to take forever. I felt like I did so much, had so much time with the people I cared about. But when my own children were small, I let time move too quickly. I managed to imprint several moments at the time, knowing that I would want to refer back to them many times in the future. (And I did--my younger daughter has a talent with being the one to create our own family memes, intentionally or not. Usually not.) Now that I am deliberately slowing everything down, I am digging deep into stored memories that are buried under the fluff of more recent goings-on, and I'm discovering that I did retain more than I ever knew at the time. I worried that my children didn't do as much, have as many broadening experiences as I did. I felt like I had failed them, and wasted their formative years. As I put the passage of time into perspective, I realize that there was easily enough that happened, with and without me, to create the deeply fascinating young women I get to call daughters now. I plan to document, for myself and to share, some of these memories as I carve them from the back of my brain. I will try to make them interesting, but more than anything, I want to make them permanent and accessible.
I have to attend a going-away luncheon in half an hour. I am not sure I am going to handle this one well. The friend who is moving became a such an important person in my life, in such an incredibly short time. When I was in the hospital in January, it was she who I wanted to see most of all, and I nearly cried when I learned she was out of town that week. I don't want her to go, but the opportunity she and her family have is too good to pass up. I wish them well, and I know that the stories, the legend of her entertaining self, will live on. I will make sure of that.
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