Everyday Canvas

Memories

Prompt: "Memories are forget-me-nots gathered along life's ways, pressed close to the heart in a perennial bouquet!" Clara Smith Reber
Write about your memories that mean the most to you.

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The first word of this prompt made me remark “Ahha!” because lately I have been driving to James Galway and I had just walked in after listening to him on the flute, playing “Memories” from Cats. Synchronicity, it is, or another forget-me-not in my perennial bouquet.

Another forget-me-not is that I am reading Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg. It is fiction telling the truth through the memories of a young girl in Poland, after the fall of communism, during the 1970s and 1980s.

As to my memories, at my age, if I tried to write them down, the result might rival Encyclopedia Britannica in bulk. One thing is for sure; I can remember the oldest memories the best, such as the ornamental red fish (might be koi) swimming in the backyard pond and me kneeling down watching them with my mother standing as the lifeguard behind me; then, a stray cat catching a fish with just one swipe of his paw and me crying my eyes out.

This was about the same time when that cat had also caught a newly hatched chick with the hen cackling. I bet my bawling was louder than the hen’s cackling.

I also recall my first vision of a woman in white, a bride, in one of the houses in the neighborhood where a daytime wedding was held. I thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world and threw a tantrum demanding they get me the same dress. “When you are old enough, you’ll wear one,” I was told. Yet, when my so-called time came, I felt a disdain for any bridal gown, calling them “clown dresses.”

See, this is only from my beginnings. You shouldn’t get me started.