“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books
written in a foreign language.
...At present you need to live the question.
Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it,
find yourself experiencing the answer,
some distant day.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
I have several keys like that myself. The smell of oleander in the evening, a train whistle in the distance, the smell of Salem Lights (my grandmother's cigarette of choice) all slam me back into my pre-adolescent self in Northern California. It's nice, but sometimes it aches a little when I don't see it coming.
ReplyDeleteThere is something about a song that really does make you think of certain times in your life. Sometimes for no particular reason. Good or bad we always have that memory with us.
ReplyDeletewhenever I hear a certain song from the '80's (music which I grew up on), I do get a sense of nostalgia and strange thoughts comes to my mind but they dissipated, I suppose our mind never forgets anythings, sometimes it just hides what we assume was forgotten
ReplyDeletep.s., thanks for your postcard and poem, I meant to send you one as well but somehow that thought escapes me but thanks just the same
I can't believe you quoted "Letters To A Young Poet." That is my favorite quote and I found so much comfort reading that passage when I was younger that it is like scripture to me.
ReplyDeleteFor me the smell of rain upon pavement transports me back in time to a less complicated time when I was a youth...Lovely post.~Sharon
ReplyDeleteMagical, really. It seems to me that most things that trigger memories for me, unfortunately bring back painful memories of past hurts. I'll have to do some serious thinking of triggers that remind me of happy moments. I know there must be some, just coming up dry here at the computer screen. Thanks for the food for thought.
ReplyDeleteOk, I have to add to my comment from yesterday after pondering it all day. It's not that the memories are so painful, it's just that the nostalgia they evoke for past days is full of sentimental sadness. We can never go back.
ReplyDeleteToday, I spoke with a friend of mine after Mass. He's elderly, in his 80's and so very sweet. He spoke of pain, but couldn't be specific with me about the pain he was feeling. Then we embraced and all day, whenever I would move in a certain way, I would catch the scent of his cologne on my clothes. Every time I noticed it, I was reminded to pray for him and whatever it was that was troubling him.
Maybe our memory triggers are there to remind us to pray for the people in our lives who hold significant meaning for us.
(The word verification is "dearicat" how cute!)
Dear Anne,
ReplyDeleteIn case you see this- yes, you notice how much I consider memory. Aquinas referred to memories as spiritual gifts. I have numerous of my own that I hold to be so- and also many that are haunting and upsetting. But such is history.
I'm so glad for all your astute comments.
Thank you!