Memories….Like Autumn Leaves.
When we are young, our memory is being fed with all very new sights, sounds and
emotions. Everything is young, tender and vulnerable. Just like the young buds on a
tree in spring.
As we get older and start to grow through the summer of our life, our memories are
filled to over-flowing. They’re vibrant, clear and passionate. Just like the flora and
fruits of our maturing summer plumage on our tree.
Late summer, and the fruit ripens and starts to fall to ground. Just like our memories.
Starting to fade now with every passing minute of the day.
Late autumn and those fresh, vibrant, bright green leaves have turned brown, golden,
red and yellow. They are falling dead from our tree. Our memories, disappearing as
if they’d never existed in the first place.
Summer holidays, birthdays and happy days. Sad days and violent days, crumbling
into dust as mother nature takes back what’s ‘Hers’ in the first place.
Winter arrives, and there are still just a very few leaves clinging on to the sparse,
withered branches that gave them so much life earlier in the year. But come the frost,
the snow, the rain and the wind to eventually ‘flush’ them from all existence. Just
like our memories.
People may think writing down our memories as being a futile gesture at self
recognition. I find, as each day passes, memories that were so crisp just a few short
years ago, are now ‘gone’ – never to be retrieved from the hard drive of my life.
So….I’m writing them down in a futile attempt that they can cling onto the withering
branches of life for a little while longer.
The memories? – They’re mine, all mine.
They’re mine to share with my family, friends and any strangers that care to look up and see them.
They may be old, discoloured and brittle right now. But once they were just young vulnerable buds,
being nurtured by mother nature.
Herself a ‘free spirit’ of which we are all a part.
Ven Bunce
.