I’m 72 now, soon to be 73, at least that’s the plan. The trips to the doctors office are more frequent. Although I no longer live in my hometown and don’t get to see my old classmates in person, I do see them occasionally on Facebook. Funny, I don’t remember them being that old! I mean, they look good, familiar faces, but, well, old. But then again, so do I. I have to remind myself of all the years that have passed by. I’m grateful for that though, needing the reminders I mean, far too many are past that now, they are the memory.

This isn’t my first time thinking and writing about this sort of thing, I find myself in a pensive mood quite frequently these days. I guess that is why so many older men are painted sitting in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe. The working mans’ depiction of the “Thinker”, that famous sculpture by Rodin. I read that originally it was called the Poet and was part of a larger piece. I have written some poetry, I’m identifying it as poetry anyway, and I do think a lot. I’ll keep my clothes on.

I was in one of those moods as I looked around my home. When in that mood I see the things that I don’t usually see. I think we are all like that, we develop a bit of tunnel vision. We don’t see all those things sitting on a shelf in a dusty corner or pictures on the walls. Our homes aren’t shown in the architectural digest. Our homes are filled with memories, not decorations. Strangely however, our memories may become another’s decor! I certainly hope that is the case with at least a small portion of my memories.

I began a while back to build a catalogue of my “treasures.” My thought was to write a brief explanation of what the object was and what it meant to me. The purpose was to save those objects from being discarded as just old stuff. They are my memories and I don’t want them to be lost. That project has been set aside as it seemed a bit foolish the more I wrote. Presidents have libraries, us common folks just fade away. I have come to realize that those objects are something for me to enjoy. I’ve also come to understand that others could create their own memory, attached to that item. Same object, different memory.

While I was in that pensive mood, looking at some of those things, I realized just how long I have had them. A statue I bought outside the coliseum in Rome over forty years ago sits on a shelf unnoticed for the most part. A small ceramic bowl I made in shop class back in 1968. And there are those artifacts from the past that I inherited in some fashion, my great grandfathers clock and a few other things that came from his home. I have things from my children, made thirty years ago or more, just scraps of paper to someone that doesn’t know. But those are the things that bring me peace, comfort and contentment. My wish is that they would do the same for others after I’m gone. But, the truth is they would have to create that for themselves, it isn’t anything I can do for them. Comfort lives in the past and hope lies in the future, we just live somewhere in between.