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9.2.17

Some memories

Take me back to when the days tasted like Big Stick popsicles and 7-11 oatmeal raisin cookies.
Take me back to when the nights smelled like dew and lawn clippings, and curfews were fences we scrambled to secretly climb over.
Take me back to when we kicked it on scooters, when I tried to drift on my bike and blacked out.
Take me back to when summer days were spent in the pool, and summer nights in the hot tub with pizzas.
Take me back to when Kennedy threw Snow Day and we'd gambol about with the California sun beaming overhead.
Take me back to long talks sitting in the grass mounds, long talks sitting in friends' houses, long talks sitting on benches and concrete, outside anywhere.
Take me back to when we used to study at the library and walk to Starbucks and order caramel macchiatos because we were grown men and women who could handle that illicit brown elixir, coffee.
Take me back to when our towne center only had a fountain in the center space, when there was a Golden Spoon, a Barnes and Noble, and Wal-Mart was smaller but still big enough for me to get lost in.
Take me back to when there was that Hollywood video rental store and a Sam Ash in that little plaza across from the towne center, with the golden statue on the intersection corner.
Take me back to when we used to use MapQuest to print directions to friends' houses, and my dad would pull out his huge atlas when planning family trips.
Take me back to when Pine Tree BBQ and VIP Chinese Restaurant were THE places for church gatherings and my grandfather would drive us, sleepy and stuffed, back home.
Take me back to when my grandfather would drive off to the sauna and come back with paper towels in his slippers, when my grandmother could walk up all the stairs to the second floor without a problem.
Take me back to when everything was light-years away and our car was a rocket travelling between galaxies, a magic machine that would lull me to sleep and (seemingly) instantly teleport me to the destination.
Take me back to when life was a little more simple and moved a little bit more slowly.
Take me back to when someone had tadpoles, someone had puppies, someone had birds and turtles, and everybody had hamsters.
Take me back to when we would motions at trucks to blow their horns, and we would feel like royalty when they obliged.

Take me back just for a moment, a moment would be all that I need.  Take me back, let me be there with every fiber of my being and all my senses enveloped, just for that one moment.  Then freeze it, I'd only ask for one more second to appreciate it all.  Because I don't want to keep forgetting, like I'm grasping at leaves in the wind, like I'm trying to catch bubbles underwater, like I'm trying to keep that whole handful of sand in my fist without any of it slowly trickling down, down, down - until the only leaves I can grab are the dead brown ones on the ground, until the bubbles reach the surface and pop, until only a few grains of sand remain.

But this is impossible, right?  I'm going to forget and continue forgetting.  How ironic is it that you can't appreciate your childhood until you've outgrown it?  And so I reflect nostalgically and conclude pessimistically.

But perhaps there is a better way.  Not a way back in time, but a better way to deal with the present and the future than to simply wish for that which can no longer be.  It's to be in the present.  Here and now.  Take it in, imprint it into your mind, capture it in pictures and videos if you must.  But even more than that, live it.  Be there in each moment completely.  Live it fully, breathe in deeply, feel it strongly.  Laugh heartily, cry genuinely, try persistently.  That way, even if you forget the small things, you'll know that you tried and that will be enough.  Steal moments for yourself when you need them; but when you're finished, give moments to those around you, even strangers, even if you don't always feel like it.  Don't deprive those around you of yourself.  You are never inflicting yourself onto others, as hard as it might be for you to believe.  You are making your own cut on this giant diamond of life and the world.  So don't hesitate, live sincerely and dream earnestly.

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