Memories are precious things.  Moments captured often without purpose that can be triggered by the most unassuming of events – a song on the radio, a smell from the kitchen, a word not often spoken.  We don’t recognize we’re creating memories when things are happening, at least not most of the time, ideally because we’re living the moment and not looking or thinking about how it could make us feel in the future.  Sometimes a memory triggered can be finite:  ‘that song reminds of this precise moment when X happened’.  Other times they are more general in nature: ‘baking shortbread reminds me of times I spent in the kitchen with my Mom’.   Regardless of how they are appear or what they represent, memories are pretty remarkable things, reminding us that we’ve existed and experienced a lifetime before this moment; I’ve been feeling a lot of that lately.

Movies, to no one’s surprise, are triggers for me – having watched countless VHS tapes as a kid and now experiencing them again with my kin.  I won’t dig up all the old stories on this subject again, but I will say that watching Indian Jones with the girls for the first time certainly stirred up some emotions and felt I was suddenly in the midst of sharing with the girls vs. simply ‘digesting content’.  The same thing can be said for recent viewings of Back to the Future, and my anticipation for Big, Gremlins, and so many more.  Watching these 80’s classics floods my brain with thoughts of where I was in my life at the time they meant so much to me.  Not so much in the sense of where I literally watched these movies, but who my friends were at the time, the antics we got up to, the games we played, the forts we built in our backyards and the childhood I once had; the type of childhood I hope my girls are experiencing today.  The movies are tangential to the experience, but given their spot in history, have the ability to bring certain things to the forefront of my thoughts.

Ping pong – another of those staples in my life that manages to bring on decades of laughter and amusement just by the presence of a table.  As a kid, the day my parents put a ping pong table in the basement is the day that new traditions were born.  I’m probably exaggerating my recollections, but it seems to me that New Years meant staying up late, indulging in snacks, and family tournaments as we bounced that ball back and forth,  often times with extreme agility and the occasional dive across the room.  It’s one of the few active things I can recall ever doing as a family, and those recollections are chock full of ‘laugh ’til you cry’ moments.

Fast-forward a number of years and the sport popped up for me again in college, as one of the first things the house mates and I purchased for the den in our basement.  I can’t tell you how many tournaments took place, but it was always in use and always full of the type of smack talk you might imagine from a house full of college students living their best mid-20’s life. Given the chance to pick up the paddle again this weekend, all of these eras in my life rush back to me with fondness and joy.  I’m certainly not the player I once was twenty years ago, but getting into a friendly competition at the table is no less enjoyable or fun all these years later…though it may come with a few more creaks, cracks and grunts.

Sitting here in a cottage on snow-covered lake with the sun just rising and the memories at the forefront of my thoughts I can’t help but wonder if this itself is one of those moments to be forever captured.  I wonder even more about what the girls might be up to with their parents away for the weekend – what shenanigans might they be getting up to, what adventures are they on?  At the age they are now, it has hit me that they have so many more opportunities to create memories than I have left for my own.  That’s not to sound dire or bleak; to the contrary – these thoughts enter mind in a beautiful way.  These events I hold on to in my subconscious are ones for which I am eternally grateful, and the realization that they are in the prime time of developing something worth of looking back on is a warming feeling.  At what is now realistically beyond the halfway point of my life, I know that I’ve still got loads more to look forward to in this life, but so much is also behind me – that I get to view these treasured memories as experiences is something I am grateful for, not remorseful against.

I imagine we’ll be spending the rest of the weekend revelling in many more rounds of ping pong, hikes along the lake, laughs around the campfire and tales of ‘remember when?’ as this group of gathered friends has gone back enough time now that we’ve got a few hijinks of our own to pull from the good ol’ memory banks.  From playing some Rock Band ’til the wee hours, knocking back some Fireball, or getting into the wonderful world of politics, we’re sure to be finding ourselves in the good company of times gone by, as we build a few more good ones without even recognizing it.  That’s the beauty of memory making – you happens without any required effort and is triggered by surprise.  Be it learning to paint an ostrich (check!), cold plunging in the frozen waters (check!), and early morning yoga (check!), from this weekend, I look forward to whatever the future holds.