TIME~THE PROGRESSION OF EXISTENCE

Maybe it is the old age factor that makes insignificant memories flash right up, uninvited... I'm sitting here minding my own business and there it is, Kimberly and I in Atlanta for "market" when she owned Celebrations Bridal. Our favorite restaurant was "Sweet Tomatoes" with the biggest salad bar you've ever seen, homemade soups and breads, plus pasta, and the memory is so clear that if I opened my eyes, I would be standing in front of the soft-serve ice-cream machine... I think Covid ate their lunch... A sad loss indeed. But the clear reality of fifteen years ago blows my mind... the taste, the sound, the smell, conversation across the table at our booth, the vacant tables not yet cleared... How is it still exactly like I left it, fixed in time and immutable? Kimberly died seven years ago, closed Celebrations fifteen years ago, I've retired a thousand miles from home, and lived a whole new life in a place less anchored. I have long believed that time is made of slices like the pages of a book and does not pass the way we see it. I just find myself all through it's pages, some I'd love to edit, and sometimes I do... but not this time.

Reviews

[Ms claws]

Vol, So many experiences! You inspire so much! When I read you, I try to think of things you say like remembering scents and, ya know? I often do!
I can remember when my mom would let me lay my head on her lap in church. I was so bored at approx 3 years old. She smelled like whatever we had for Sunday breakfast, the scents clinging to her skin, country ham and biscuits, red-eye gravy, I could even smell the molasses we dunked the biscuits in. Thanks for your forever inspiring writes!

[Vol]

Yes, Ma'am! That's exactly what I mean... We have all those big memories, Births, Deaths, marriages, wars, the big stuff, but those vivid ones of insignificant little things are who we are, I think.
Vol

[Michael Sun Bear]

Vol, you and I have been up to the same thing, reliving some of our best memories and writing about it. I am waiting for a young critic to ask if I don’t have something better to do. LOL

[Vol]

Michael,
I've had a checkerboard life, and unlike those folk who grew up in one town with in one house with lifelong friends have no idea what it is like to go to 13 different schools between kindergarten an graduation...6 colleges for a BA...My memory well is deep.
Vol

[John the Baptist]

Glad to know someone else experiences these unbidden old memories. It would be nice, though, if more of them were pleasant.

[Vol]

John.
I get just as many of those, but I'm not dwelling there

[RomaJ]

Vol, this really resonated with me, how vividly a single memory can return, uninvited, flowing into the present with all its sights, sounds, and sensations as if no time has passed at all.

Your reflection on Atlanta and Celebrations Bridal captures that so beautifully, the taste, the sound, the smell, the conversation, a moment frozen yet alive. There are so many films that explore this idea of reliving or holding onto a perfect memory, and it is such a beautiful thing. Those kinds of films always stay with me because it would be nice to be able to step right into that perfect moment that was so vividly captured in your mind.

It is like having the most beautiful dream and finding the right words to describe the vision so that readers can feel like they are dreaming with you.

One film that stayed with me is A.I., where the boy robot is granted one perfect day with his mother from his core memory. That idea, of time as layered rather than linear, where we can revisit a moment that still feels alive, reflects what you have expressed here so movingly. If I could relive just one perfect memory with a loved one, it would be enough. Your story reminds me of the quiet, bittersweet power of memory and how those moments, though fleeting in life, can remain eternal in our minds

[Vol]

Thank you, Roma,
It was a weird kind of intrusion... nothing really important happened, but the life I had when Kimberly was alive was a continuing adventure of going places and doing things... I think, at any given moment another equally vivid, random moment might overwhelm me... It seems to happen quite often. A couple of years ago, I was scrolling through YouTube and stopped, went back to something that flickered and found a guy busking with his guitar. Behind him was The Columbia Restaurant on St. Armond's Circle in Sarasota. I lived there back in the late 70s and early 80s... My youngest son still lives there, and I watched the lite glisten on the palm fronds, could hear the salt breezes, smell the perfume and watch the wealthy stroll by in their expensive haircuts and clothing... took me back to when I lived by the sea and now I long to go back...
Vol

[RomaJ]

I love how vividly you describe those flashes of memory -- the sights, sounds, and even scents all coming back in an instant. It’s fascinating how a simple scene, like the busker by The Columbia Restaurant, can transport us decades back and make the past feel alive again. I think those moments are precious, a reminder of how deeply life and place imprint themselves on us. Your reflections really capture the bittersweet beauty of memory -- both the joy of reliving it and the longing it can bring.

[Lorry]

Those significant memories that feel straight out the wrapper have no best before dates on them, because every time we think of them it is like we are back in that moment, trying to choose which flavour we'll get this time, but only if we're good and eat up all our salad...even that leafy green stuff rabbits turn their nose up at!
And my oh my what a sense-sation that reminder is, where you could probably smell Kimberly's perfume and the waitresses sweat soaked outfit.
All I have to do is pass a pipe smoker and I am right back in my Grampa's place, as he silently smiles and shuffles away to get us some orange squash and biscuits.
It never fails to make me hope I hugged him tight the last time I saw him, but I was young and buzzing from the biscuits and squashed!
If you really think about it, smells are as important to our memories as colour is to them. Could you imagine your memories just being a black and white photo with typed narration added?
No, bring me the 4K scratch and sniff edition every time thanks! 😀

[Vol]

Lorry,
You know that huge debate between Creation or Evolution? Well UI think they both have merit and explain why some people are cruel, while others are empaths... The evolved have no soul, therefor their memories are B&W snapshots, they drop their litter where they stand, and know nothing of poetry. Those who have descended from the created, walk in beauty because they know no other way...
Vol

[Lorry]

And if you call them out on their lazymess to not even find a trash can, they'll look offended at you like they've done nothing wrong.
I can't believe Trump hasn't come up with a tariff for litter droppers! 😀