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How the mind, and especially the memory work, is an amazing thing. I have neither the education nor the intellect to really understand the how of it.

Probably each of us has dreams that are about things both familiar and unfamiliar, and we really wonder where the ones that we are puzzled over came from.

Memory is also truly hard to explain at times. That is, “What made that memory come to me?” we often ask ourselves.

Some memories are clear, whole. They can be so palpable that it seems almost only yesterday you were in the reality of it. Usually, for me, they are sweet – not always – but usually.

My memories bring forth emotions, some bittersweet, most just sweet, though.

They can be about one’s youth. About those growing up friends, things done with them, that truly reinforce the perception that “The past is never past.” In some ways, even if only just transitorily, we become one with our memories.  

How blessed we are, those of us whose memories are mostly good ones. How grateful we should be.  

There are those memories, for some, that are, can be, very sad. Some are of tragic times, or at the least disappointing events. Then there are those memories engendered by nostalgia.  

Johnny Cash’s song “I Still Miss Someone” speaks to a time that was special, but is no more.  Most probably about a former love. Indelibly so. Something kept to oneself.  

In 1916 John Muir wrote “Memories may escape the action of the will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred by the right influence, though that influence be light as a shadow, they flash into full stature and life with everything in place.” Heavy.  

Well, now. When I first began writing this column weeks ago, I stopped, being unsure just exactly where I was going with it. So I set it aside for a while, hoping for a little inspiration to come along. Some fertile ideas to be made manifest, as they say.  

This is the point, however, when those of you who have stuck with me this far to perhaps justifiably say, “That inspiration never did come along, did it, old timer?” Touche. I get it.

As I said at the beginning of this, “How the mind, and especially the memory work is an amazing thing.”  

And that “I have neither the education nor the intellect to really understand the how of it.” As for dreams, well, that’s probably even more of a mystery than memory.

That’s just how it is.  

APROPOS – “Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”  

                                                  – Oscar Wilde