End of Summer

The end of summer is a strong emotional time for me. Not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because it feels like a time of change and transition, moving on to other things. Maybe it’s partly because of the trends of life, work and school.

Or it could just be the weather.

On one hand, I feel fresh and ready for what’s ahead, excited a little over the idea that there is new opportunity for change and growth. The fall and winter are work times, productive times, times to put wings on my hope for something better.

On the other hand, I feel a sense of loss. The past year seems to end for me here. Not on December 31st, like it should, but at the end of August when summer comes to a close. This time with my wife and kids and friends, it's behind us. It's gone now, and the only way to move is forward.

And yet, the fall is one of my favorite times of year.  I treasure this cool, sweatshirt wearing, leaves changing colors, time between summer and the winter that I could do without. The fall is the transition, the get ready for the ice age. And in Michigan, where I live, the fall is all too short sometimes. Winter seems to come at us like a starving carnivore, wanting to devour the warmth and sun.

The end of summer has been filled with some painful revelations and challenges. Several people I love have discovered that they aren’t as healthy as they thought they were. I'll be at the hospital all day Tuesday with my sister who is in for cancer surgery. It makes me sick to think of her going through this, but I can do nothing about it except pray and try to be there for her. The winter ahead could be very difficult.

Some of the people I love are enduring great loss. The past year has been a hard one for so many people. Life isn’t what they expected. It has hit them hard while they weren't looking and taken the wind out of them. Some of them are working hard to just breathe again. And on top of these kinds of things, my kids are getting older. They aren’t really “little” children anymore. So the house is changing. The dynamic is different, and we all have to find our place in the new environment.

For me personally, heading into this fall and winter, there are a lot of things that need to change, a lot that needs to be done. Personally, professionally, and in my home. But I think I’m ready.

Back to work. Hup, hup, hup.






Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Reremembering

Sometimes at night, when I can’t sleep, I find myself trying to think back as far as I possibly can. I try to figure out what my earliest memory is.

I have a very strong visual memory. I can recall images of some long ago events like they happened this morning. I can remember faces, but I have a hard time remembering names sometimes, even the names of people I was really close to. I can give you directions to almost anywhere by giving you landmarks, but I can’t remember the names of the roads. I can remember pointless details and lots of facts that I’ve learned over the years, but I would never find my car keys if I didn’t keep them on a hook by the door.

Memory is my blessing and my curse. There are things I’m so glad I remember and many things I wish I could forget.
  
But I was trying to remember my earliest memory, and I find it’s very hard to place certain memories chronologically. In posting on this blog, I’ve had to contact my mom several times to get the time sequences right on things and recall some of the things said. But I think my earliest memories are just visual.

I remember a shed in the backyard of the house we lived in when I was around 3 years old. I also remember the basement flooding in that house, and another “episode” where my older brothers were teasing me in that basement by singing the song “Sherry” by the Four Seasons, and replacing the name “Sherry” with the name “Davey.” They made me cry.

Don’t you hate them for that? Mean old big brothers. (We have resolved all of our former conflicts, in case you’re wondering.)

I think the earliest memory I can pull up is some images of the inside of a crib, with some toys. My mom has confirmed these images. Apparently I had some health problems when I started out and I spent a lot of time in that crib with some plastic toys which I was determined to consume.

Do you have an earliest memory? I’d really like to hear what it is. I find it fascinating. Are your earliest memories visual or do you remember sounds or is it more about an event or a circumstance? Some people I know have almost no memories from when they were very young and others seem to remember everything.

Einstein said, “Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.” But it’s also all we have sometimes. So we make due with it.

Image of human brain synapse in the state of storing a memory,
by Michael A. Colicos, UCSD.
For me, storing them is no problem.
Finding where I stored them is the problem!

Psalm 77:11-12
Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2010