Time and memory

Been thinking so much about time and consciousness lately.


I have all these memories of my parents, childhood, being a young parent.


Memories are specific.  You let most of them fall away.  Only the ones that are somehow meaningful to you rise to the surface.


They are sensory, like a candy you roll around in your mouth, tasting each subtle flavor, making it last.


Others cause pain and regret,  "coming back to haunt you."


But I realize, when I am gone, these will be gone, too.


These incidents in consciousness that I think have a huge solidity, a life of their own, will simply no longer be.  There will be no one to return to them.


The only way to pass them on is to tell someone who more or less cares and might then share them with someone else and even then, it is only an approximation.


Or to write, paint, sculpt, write a song about what that moment in time was for you.


Several months before he died, a friend of mine described lying in a hotel room in Hawaii, quite a few floors up, the tradewinds blowing over him through both of the windows.


He said it was so beautiful, that he was so peaceful.


I put myself in his place for a moment and knew, by his tone of voice, that he was experiencing bliss and no-time, wonder and joy, the sweetness of existence.


I think of this often.  It comforts me, and I share a little of his existence again, the sweet part, and I am so glad he felt this way and shared it with me.


I have no conclusion to this piece, just the ephemeral nature of life and memory-


sweet, painful, grateful and sad all at once.