Lessons in Balance

Memory, in Five Minutes

May I share with you, an example of why I'm so attracted to cyberspace?  I looked at the topic for Day 15 - Five Minutes, and thought I'd fire up the search engines to see what "do you remember when" would bring up.  Here's how it flowed:

 

• Of course, out of all the choices Google offered, I was attracted to Jack Johnson's "Do You Remember" . As I listened,  I recalled the times in my studio when this song played as we did massages and acupuncture treatments. Sweet memories arose.
• As soon as I heard the lines "Do you remember when we first moved in together? The piano took up the living room," I searched for "piano filled living room" and my favorite picture? The one above.
• In order to give proper credit to the photo, I followed the linked website and discovered Jessica Williams. I've always loved the piano, classical and jazz music, and near the end of the introductory video I learned that she also has synesthesia. Now I want her music to fill my living room.

In five minutes every link I made, tugged at memories and when I followed the trail, it led me to something new and fascinating. Try it yourself. Set a time for Five Minutes, pick a topic, run a Google search and see what memories are accessed and what new connections appear.

 Please come back and tell me about them.

Photo: Jessica Williams

A Jar for My Memories

 

One of the memories from the past month that I hold precious, is my recollection of standing in my kitchen in the early morning, admiring my little Christmas "tree". I'd plug in the lights, suck in a deep breath of salt air, and a smile and a sigh later, get started with my day.

Now that the tree is gone, I'm so glad that I'll have pictures to remind me, not so much of the way the tree looked, but of the way it made me feel. Phone and digital cameras make it so convenient to snap shots of my life, but a movie ticket or notes written on a napkin will also flash an instant replay of something that happened months or years ago.

When I came across the memory jar idea, there was instant appeal. I want a jar to hold little reminders of my year that I can look at, write about, or even repeat. The author of Inchmark, Brooke Reynolds, writes down funny things her children say and keeps them in her jar (photo above) to read when ever she needs a boost.

I wonder what will end up in my jar over the next thirty days.

 

 Related post: Reverb 10 - Five minutes

Photo: Inchmark