moment accumelation

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It is 8:10 AM PST on January 3 as I write this. I’ve been thinking about moments… memorable ones… the kind that floats to the surface without any prodding. We live our lives, and in so doing, create memories. Some we try to forget and others we hold on to dearly. Good ones or the less pleasant ones… they are always there. Even if we choose not to remember them, they probably still exist in someone else’s memory bank, especially if it was a shared experience.

If we sit down and think about it… there are probably just a handful we can recall instantly. For instance, I can still recall, at the age of 8, that magical moment I rode a bicycle without the aid of training wheels. It was in the hallway of my Uncle Anselm’s place in Seremban. The sense of euphoric triumph that surged through my body was electric. Though I did not whoop in celebration but instead held it within in a quiet victory. (Yeah, I even did that at an early age.)

If we sit a little longer and go through our mental Rolodex of memories others will emerge. There are things we have done or accomplished… places we’ve been… unusual or unique experiences… and people.

The ones I delight in the most are the people ones. It used to be that thinking of someone was to scan an index file of moments… of words… of actions… good, bad, indifferent. They are all there. They exist despite how we choose to edit them. At times recalling those can bring about delight and entertainment and at other times disappointment and despair.

That has since changed… at least for me. It was a short while ago… I’m uncertain if it was a conscious choice or I simply slipped into it… but now when I think of a person I remember a moment… or a shared moment…. most often an accumulation of many moments… distilled into one. It provides me with the essence of the person in their relationship to me.

I have now have accumulated sixty odd years of these moments. It is fair to say that some float up more readily than others… but my life has been made richer by all of them. I can only hope the ones I’ve shared with others hold a similar esteem.