the highest branch on the apple tree
it was my favourite place to be
i could hear them breaking free
but they could not see me
Our Valentine’s Day dinner date was this evening. The grandparents, accompanied by an aunt and uncle, came and babysat the kids for a few hours while Diane and I went to Noble’s Grille for dinner. She had the steak; I had the salmon; both were delicious. She was lovely in her brown wrap and hair done up with waves and curls, and conversation was brisk. For the most part, we successfully avoided the subject of the kids, and instead talked about her experiences working in restaurants, my conflicted emotions about an ongoing friendship with a pastor of a church we visited, her reservations about flying over the Atlantic, some anecdotes from our dating days and other things. Speaking of which–part of the reason we picked the restaurant was that it was the site of our three-monthiversary way back in mid-2006.
Our life has changed so much since then it’s difficult to remember what it was like before. I reread old journal entries and find that the emotional memories conjured up are becoming increasingly faint. From experience, though, emotional memories are just like anything else–ignore them for a while and you’ll be surprised at their intensity the next time something (usually unexpectedly) happens to trigger them. I imagine it’ll be like that with the transitional time a few years ago.
In some ways memories are like literature or classic music–they have to prove themselves by standing the test of time. There’s an initial period when the memory is very immediate, and then it has to go dormant for a while, to germinate in order to emerge in time stronger–and more accessible in some ways–than it was initially. We’re too impatient most of the time. We need to keep in mind that we rarely know which things really matter until a span of time passes, the shaft of light of memory converges again to focus and we’re able to distinguish the significant from the superfluous. And bring that to bear on the present–therein lies wisdom, I think. Not that any of us remember perfectly, or even well, but it’s incumbent upon us to try our best.