Relative Something

My memories are fading, but as I revisit many of them, the details I review slowly grow more memorable and probably less accurate with each iteration.

I remember what my life was like before my eyesight declined to the point of needing glasses to see with functional clarity. Those memories often arise in response to needing to clean my glasses in the present day.

I remember how free life was before the coronavirus pandemic.

I remember when there were no personal computers.

I remember getting my first mobile phone when my workplace at the time made them available to all employees for personal use.

I remember how awkward it always felt to walk alone in front of the entire length of the high school bleachers on the way to get a bag of popcorn from the concession counter.

I remember how much I liked the popcorn purchased at those basketball games in the high school.

I remember using our basement for a kitchen in our Eden Prairie house while we were having the upstairs remodeled.

I remember putting a vinyl Crosby, Stills, & Nash record on the old hi-fi phonograph with the sliding glass woodgrain top panels when it was in the closet of my boyhood bedroom and then laying on my bed to listen until I fell asleep.

I remember when the impacts of the greenhouse effect on our planet were hardly noticeable and mainly the subject of scientific predictions.

I remember when we first set foot on the property we eventually purchased in Beldenville, Wisconsin. I will always remember walking one of the trails near the house and coming upon the gnarly oak tree that remains the most prominent.

I remember when the sky turned a deeper blue during the two times when air traffic was greatly reduced: After the September 11 attacks and when the pandemic lockdowns stopped almost all travel around the globe.

I remember the morning I called our health clinic to ask to be seen in my first step of treating my depression.

I remember how moved I felt after learning about the extent of hidden added sugars in processed foods that occurred with increasing frequency throughout my lifetime.

I remember tying one of my deceased mother’s handkerchiefs to a branch as a prayer flag in the Himalayan mountains around the highest elevation I achieved during the trek I did in 2009.

I remember my son inspiring me to start a blog to chronicle the trek I would be doing.

I remember learning I was an asthma sufferer during my physical that was required by the adventure travel company before the trip began.

I remember waking up stressed from breathing the smoke that had leaked from the woodstove all night when we slept in the lodge of the Sherpa sirdar guiding our trek.

What I can’t remember is any reason I started this exercise and whether or not I had a point in mind. Having a point would have come in handy when it came to reaching a conclusion.

This reminds me of how often I find myself laboring to come up with a closing line for daily blog posts.

Sometimes, I just want to “Say goodnight, Gracie.”

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