Why bother if they don't remember?

Eric, Kathryn, Joshua, and Leanne at Disneyland ~2003

Have you ever been to Disneyland, or some other remarkable destination, as a child, but don't remember it?  This is not an uncommon experience.  Memories from our youth are often fleeting with images that seem barely formed and are very short of specifics.  The minutia of each day dissolves into the blur of the past and, for what was once an amazing time, becomes little more than a haze.  

Why bother?

After the expense, fatigue, and conflicts that are bound to occur, what are you left with other than memories that will eventually disappear and maybe one tall green cup and straw.  Even that will fade away as some garage sale or recycling bin claims the prize and removes another link to a forgotten time.  Was all of that worth it?

My thoughts go to a piece of furniture, perhaps a familiar couch that had bends in all the right places.  For years it was the destination of a tired body where its soft contours and gentle support would allow your mind to fully embrace a book or a favourite album.  After years of wear and many moves, the supporting frame and plush fabric wore out.  The once familiar embrace no longer held the magic it used to and its time had come.  It would be destined for the landfill.

So, now we have two separate events, a vacation and a sofa, both long gone and mostly forgotten.  On the one hand, they have nothing in common, while on the other they make the point about to be shared.  At the moment of engagement, they both served a purpose.  They were both important conduits of time, bonds that served a function and possessed enormous value then and there.  They are links in a chain being unrolled through a hausehole in the hull of a ship.  They pass the office as a moment in time and then descend into the depths, no longe seen.

Even though such components are not visible and out of the mind's eye doesn't mean they are not important.  Part of the whole, a gestalt if you like, these wisps of things passed by are the foundation of today.  You could have survived without the couch or the trip to Disneyland, for that matter.  But it wasn't about surviving, it was about grasping the moment and being together to forge bonds that would last a lifetime.

I don't remember a thing about Disneyland.  But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com