thoughts, words, deeds

nothing but memories

"Memories are forget-me-nots gathered along life's ways, pressed close to the heart in a perennial bouquet!" Clara Smith Reber Write about your memories that mean the most to you.

I think that the memories that mean the most to me all involve family. There's something remarkable about childhood. When we are very young, we live with our eyes pointed toward home. We focus there, and my home was a good one. I don't remember a time before my next oldest sister was born, but I remember talking with her long into the night and games and stories. My family was my entire world, and when I went outside the home, it was always with the idea that I would come back, because that's where life was.

But somewhere in there--I'd guess I was about eight or ten, life changed, and I lived on the outside, and home was a refuge from life. Then, my memories were about the things that happened, and they were all about the outside, the friends that I had, school, books, reading, writing--everything that mattered happened when I was out in the world.