Precious Memories

Last night I was outside walking the dogs when I looked up into the sky. It was dark and clear and about a million stars twinkled brightly. It took me back to a summer night many years ago...children on their backs on the damp grass, staring up into the sky, hoping to see a falling star.

I have so many memories of growing up in the rural south, but a lot of them are directly related to those lazy summer days that seemed to drag on forever. So much so that I would complain about how bored I was and count the days until school would start again. Yeah, okay, but I told you I was a nerd! It's really funny how a song, or a scent, or a night sky can bring so much of it back.

Sitting in a rocking chair on my grandma's porch, talking to her for hours on end about anything and everything and just watching the world go by. Running in the rain and smelling the freshness of it. Rolling down the huge hill behind my cousin's house, giggling all the way down and dizzily standing up when we reached the bottom, covered in grass. The cool evening breeze blowing across my face as I rode my bike every spare moment I had. The whole family quietly sitting together in the darkness after a huge picnic, listening to the sounds of the crickets and frogs singing their night songs. The whole family eating watermelon together, and the seed-spitting contest that always ensued. Running barefoot for the first time in the spring. Eating strawberries right there in the garden, the sweetest reddest strawberries I ever saw. Getting sick off the green apples growing off the trees in my grandma's yard. Catching fireflies...and then setting them free. Getting my pant leg caught in the chain of my bike and limping home attached to it, knowing I'd just created another pair of shorts and some Barbie doll clothes from the scraps of fabric that was left. Falling off the bike onto the gravel. Repeatedly. Mom putting iodine on the cuts on my knees. The scars that remain on them to this day to prove it. Playing baseball with my cousin in the yard...and the black eye he gave me with his wild pitch...and the ear-piercing scream it evoked that took 10 years off my mom's life and sent my cousin running home for cover. Fishing in the pond on great uncle Otis' farm.

They are all just random snapshots of various moments from my childhood. Each one cherished fondly. Each one crowding out all the painful memories that compete for space in my memory. Some of them don't surface very often, but when they do, they bring such a wonderfully warm feeling. There are so many more of them than I can even mention.

Isn't it weird how you hold on to these things without even trying? How they come back to comfort you and remind you that there were indeed some very good times in your life? I love that.