Old Memories
When I'm lacking inspiration for this daily
column (or any writing), I open all the doors and
windows of my mind wide and hope that the breeze
blows something in. This morning, while getting
ready for my weekend trip to Guadalupe
Canyon in Baja, I had some music playing. A
line from a cheeseball Night Ranger song drifted
into my head and stuck. "No good for an old memory
to mean so much today." That's quite a bit of
wisdom packed into the lyrics of a 1980s hair band
ballad.
I've written about retrospection and nostalgia
here before. I'm no
stranger to sentimentality, and sometimes pine for
days and people long gone. Looking back like this
can be especially attractive during hard times. But
there's a line that's crossed when one moves beyond
looking back on cherished memories and begins
living in the past. That's what Night Ranger was
talking about. It's "no good." Which I guess means
not only that it's not good to do, but also that
it's useless, pointless.
For what are we, but the sum total of our life
experiences? If we live in the past, we cease to
grow, we cease to become. Metaphorically speaking,
at least, that's like being undead—neither
alive nor dead. And living in old memories is like
wandering around a twilit underworld, where the
people are shadows and the only colors are shades
of gray.
The future, similarly, is a fogbank,
impenetrable and colorless, unknowable. But life in
the present is a prismatic explosion of experiences
to be savored, from the hug of a loved one to the
chirp of a bird outside the window. So next time
the temptation to immerse yourself in the past
arises, walk outside and smell the wet earth after
a rainstorm. Run your fingers through the leaves
and branches of a tree. Turn your face toward the
sun. Good advice that I think I'll take.
The "Daily" Strick will return next
week.
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
|
|
