What do you remember? We are all a collection of memories – memories of the past, memories we’ve just made, memories yet to come. Memories are part of who we are – what we want to hold on to and what we want to forget. Sometimes, we forget things, and then experience something – a sound, a smell, a photograph, a smile – and remember all of a sudden. Memories can be powerful and sad, happy and joyful. I know that sometimes I regret things, but I am learning to let go of the difficult things and move on, stronger in some way. Memories make me happy because they are a source of knowledge and something that I can write about – all the little things and the big things add up to experience. The more things we experience, the more they come alive when written down or snapped as a photograph. When I am old, I want to remember, even if the things I remember might also be sad and disappointing. To me – that is life – it is beautiful and bittersweet, full of colour and darkness. By doing this 31 Days of Happy Things, I am remembering all those memories and things that make me who I am, and have shaped the way I see things and understand things. It is hard to be sad when you’re looking at all the little things that make life worth living.
Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things. ~ Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal
Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us. ~ Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest”
A childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction. ~ Carol Shields
Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth. ~ Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses
Cats and Chocolate 