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Tuesday, March 11, 2008
A few of my favorite things.
10:36 PM | 
Posted by
Christine
You know how sometimes a memory hits you out of the blue, and you can vividly sense every detail like it was happening all over again?
Like hundreds of little orange butterflies I would see swarming around the yellow and brown flowers we called Indian Paintbrushes as kids. On a warm summer day, I could sit with a book and watch them for hours, listening to the insects buzzing and smelling the damp mellow greenness of the forest.
Or the nectarines my grandmother would give me, picked fresh from the tree in her back yard. We'd bring them into the house in a bushel basket with a red stripe, and wash them carefully in the kitchen sink before laying them out to dry on a paper towel on the counter. The next morning, she would hear my footsteps on the stairs, and get up from her knitting to begin peeling, so that one would be ready as I walked into the kitchen. Sweet, messy, and sticky, they were love in a bowl with skim milk and brown sugar.
Then there was landing at O'Hare Airport after my first week-long trip away from A, whom I'd called every day to discuss the wonders of his three year-old world. I recall stepping off the plane into the gate area, where he leaped from my mother's arms to sprint toward me as quickly as his stubby little legs could carry him. I fell to my knees, gathered him up, and sobbed into his shoulder as I swore to myself I would never leave him again.
And of course, sitting in the middle of the orchestra at the beginning of the second movement of Dvorák's Eighth Symphony and getting utterly lost in the beautiful melancholy, as the very air around me vibrated with sound. My heart, it seemed, would unknowingly quicken or slow to follow the steady lead of percussion. Each note, as painstakingly as it was created, would be heard not as my own voice...but as a part of the collective, indescribable being that came to life for only a few beautiful moments...before falling away into sleep among its players again afterwards.
All of those memories, cherished and untarnished by time, make me smile in wonder at the beauty I've been blessed to experience.
Yeah, I'll kind of remember it all that way.
Go ahead, you can do it, too. I won't tell.
Like hundreds of little orange butterflies I would see swarming around the yellow and brown flowers we called Indian Paintbrushes as kids. On a warm summer day, I could sit with a book and watch them for hours, listening to the insects buzzing and smelling the damp mellow greenness of the forest.
Or the nectarines my grandmother would give me, picked fresh from the tree in her back yard. We'd bring them into the house in a bushel basket with a red stripe, and wash them carefully in the kitchen sink before laying them out to dry on a paper towel on the counter. The next morning, she would hear my footsteps on the stairs, and get up from her knitting to begin peeling, so that one would be ready as I walked into the kitchen. Sweet, messy, and sticky, they were love in a bowl with skim milk and brown sugar.
Then there was landing at O'Hare Airport after my first week-long trip away from A, whom I'd called every day to discuss the wonders of his three year-old world. I recall stepping off the plane into the gate area, where he leaped from my mother's arms to sprint toward me as quickly as his stubby little legs could carry him. I fell to my knees, gathered him up, and sobbed into his shoulder as I swore to myself I would never leave him again.
And of course, sitting in the middle of the orchestra at the beginning of the second movement of Dvorák's Eighth Symphony and getting utterly lost in the beautiful melancholy, as the very air around me vibrated with sound. My heart, it seemed, would unknowingly quicken or slow to follow the steady lead of percussion. Each note, as painstakingly as it was created, would be heard not as my own voice...but as a part of the collective, indescribable being that came to life for only a few beautiful moments...before falling away into sleep among its players again afterwards.
All of those memories, cherished and untarnished by time, make me smile in wonder at the beauty I've been blessed to experience.
Yeah, I'll kind of remember it all that way.
Go ahead, you can do it, too. I won't tell.
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