I am here now

We don't forget.... Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, of smells, of places, of little things that happened to us and which came back, unexpectedly, to remind us who we are.

                                                                                      Alexander McCall Smith

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Sometimes it feels like a small space, filled with swarming bees

Or perhaps a room with a 100 TV roaring with a 100 different channel

Drama

News

Fake news

So many things get us going

A sound

A smell

An exchange of words

But sometimes the thoughts come out of nowhere at all

There it is, the memory of my father

Striding through the woods in the fall, hunting

Or my mother, putting together her famous Halloween cookies

And making our front porch a little porch of horrors

Complete with a skeleton that moved

There are warm memories, of good times

Of friends

Of school

Of places seen

And things accomplished

Whirling around, bringing sometimes smiles

And sometimes tears and self-recrimination

there are those memories of things said

Things done

That bring regret, and judgment

Stupid, stupid, stupid

Of impulsive decisions that changed the trajectory of life

Of behavior, driven by hungry ghosts

That overwhelm the good with ill

Leaving one doubtful of

One’s ultimate legacy

On and on the head roars

Until at some point one must say

“Stop it”

And breathe

And let it all go

Focusing on just one thing

On this day

This moment

Allowing that one memory

The only memory that matters

To work its way through all the others

All those thoughts of worthiness

Or unworthiness

That one thought

I am here now

A sacred child

An in this moment

I will do what I care about

What I value

For this, right now

Is the moment that counts!

This, this is my heritage.