Forgotten Memories

There is something about the house I live in that makes me think about things I haven't thought about in years. Some of them are memories of my family that I simply haven't had any reason to think of over the past few years. Others are dreams, wishes and hopes that I have either forgotten or pushed to the side over the time that I have begun to grow up.

This morning I was talking about singing grace with one of the men I live with. He was reminiscing about a family that was in his parish back in New Brunswick and the way they used to sing grace. I was reminded of what my father always says after we sing grace, or at least he used to. Reading the words has no impact until you can hear the unique way my father says this, but he used to say "The Von Trapp family singers, the singers Von Trapp" to conclude our graces. I kind of miss that. I suppose I also miss singing grace with my family as that is not something that happens often anymore.

I was speaking about a used book store that is on the corner of my street with the sunshine in the house this morning and we were saying how much we both love it. I love books more than most other things in life. I will never travel without at least two books to make sure that I don't run out of something to read. This has led to my knowledge of most of the used book stores in whichever area I am in. As we were talking about this bookstore, I was reminded of a dream I had when I was younger. I wanted to open my own used book store. I can picture it too. It's something out of a novel that I used to read, or I suppose a blend of the book stores in two of them. I would love to have a loft in the store, with a winding wrought iron staircase heading up to the loft. There would be large windows and huge couches to invite someone to curl up in them. Old fashioned lamps would dot the room for when it got darker in the evenings. There would be coffee served in the day and wine in the evening. There would be local art on the walls for sale from local artists. It would be open for poetry readings and discussions about everything. I suppose had I been born a few centuries earlier I would have run one of the salons in Paris prior to the Revolution.

That's a lovely dream to have, but I would have to put up with so much in order to make that dream happen. I don't think I would be able to do it. I could try, but I'm not sure if it would work. There are other things in my life that I want to do that would prohibit that dream from coming true. So many other things that I had almost forgotten that had ever been a dream of mine. Now that I have recorded this idea in more than a verbal way, perhaps there is more of a chance of it happening, but I doubt it.

There are so many things in our lives that we choose to forget. Memories, dreams, hopes, wishes. As we get older, the world takes part of them away from us. We are made to be harder, less imaginative and less hopeful than we once were. We don't think that we can do anything we want anymore. What we want is tempered by what is easy to get, what we think we can do and what we are told that we can do. We no longer think that we can be an astronaut, or a writer or someone who is going to change the world. We settle into the existence that is expected for us and allow much of what we used to dream slip away from us. Many people in their middle age will look back and wish for what they could have done when they had their youth, when they had the time, when they had the freedom. If they had the chance to though, many of them would make the same choices they had before. We are taught to only go after our dreams when they are reasonable, when they are easily within reach. When it takes work, when it takes imagination and when it requires sacrifice, we don't. We don't take the chance because it's too hard. The sad part is that it might be easier than what we did do. It would be easier to follow our hearts and do what we want with our lives than to conform. When we do that, we may have regrets in our lives, but they won't be because we didn't follow our dreams. It won't be because we didn't try.

As we continue to forget the things we once loved, as we allow the world to harden us a little bit more, we should try and remember. We should remember our dreams and hang onto our imagination. We should take the chance and make one of our wishes come true.