the memory marker

do you ever stop at something and think to yourself, "wow, that would be awesome to remember. i need to remember that. i MUST remember that." and sometimes you do...and sometimes you don't.

This sort of conscious initiative to store away some tasty temporal tidbit I have always thought of as analogous to a flag marking a landscape. The funny thing is unlike a flag on a landscape, it doesn't work for everything that I want to remember at all. Things i MUST remember for school or work, inevitably fall by the wayside. Other things, though stick.

I remember lying in Dad's old bunk bed at my grandmother's house one night when I was 14. It was the summer my family had home leave, and I was going into sensory overload back in the US for the first time in 2 years. I remember waking up one night at 5:14 in the morning. My dad's old alarm clock was playing "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls. For some reason, I told myself I had to remember that moment. And I still do.

Or one night during my senior year of high school. I remember going to take a shower in the middle of winter, and it was sooooo frigidly cold, or so I perceived it to be. I took off my slippers, and clearly recall noticing that my toenails were tainted blueish. I distinctly told myself that I had to remember that realization, that I had to hold on to it, tightly. And I still remember it vividly.

I had another one tonight. I was just strolling around campus, as is oft my custom. And I remember glancing up at Hoover Tower, and being taken aback by how nicely the yellow lights within the tower top blend into the navy blue of the sky. I will remember this as well.

The funny thing is there is no rhyme or reason for these impulsive, spontanteous "I must remember moments." Do you have these? I'm sure you do. All of these snapshot moments, whether you remember them or not, collectively compiled form your life. It's slightly frightening to realize that at any one point in time, you never really know how many snapshots are left on your camera. I suppose the thing to do is use your snapshots wisely, not taking them for granted.

I feel I fail at this last point miserably though. I spend hours doing things that while arguably are necessity(i.e. the 4 papers of this quarter that have made me scream KMN), are things that I care absolutely nothing for (yes, I just ended with a preposition, deal with it:). And the moments, the snapshots that are so delicious, seem so much fewer than I might want them to be.

There are these moments that I have always wanted to have, as I'm sure you do. Everyone has theirs. I love learning about other people's most desired snapshots...

For instance:
I want to...

Travel to Western China
Eat Haagen Daaz
Learn how to knit
Visit an orchard
Pick strawberries and then eat them all at once
Burn autumn leaves
Relearn how to play my favorite instrument the bass clarinet
Read Anna Karenina
Kiss out in the Rain
Nap in a hammock on Black Coral, again. for those of you who don't know, an atoll off of Pohnpei...clickie

among other things...

so while i didn't do much along these lines today, or in the past two weeks for that matter, i hope for tomorrow, and my ability to retain resolve to do these things.

however, twasn't all lost- i did do one thing on this ever elusive list, something that you can never do enough of.

what's that, you ask?

well. you've read what I have to say here, haven't you?

well.