Have you been going about your every day life when something triggers a long forgotten memory or moment? It could be a sound, a smell or just a brief glimpse out of the corner of you eye and suddenly you are whisked away through time and space.
I experienced one such moment a couple of nights ago. Tim and I were sitting on our back step waiting for the storm that was predicted to fester up when a Whippoorwill landed just a couple of feet away and began to sing. The moon was out and the storm clouds were racing across it's face and the smell of fresh cut grass was in the air.
Suddenly I was eight years old and in my bedroom with the screen window opened listening to distant thunder and the song of a Whippoorwill. I could hear my Memaw in the other room singing "Down By The Riverside" while washing up the supper dishes. The smell of blooming lilacs and freshly cut grass hung in the air. My bed at the time was quite high off the ground and I had hung my quilts off the sides to make a tent. I lay there under my bed with a flashlight reading "Three Billy Goats Gruff". My world was perfect and I had not a care in the world.
I don't know what it was about that particular moment of my childhood that caused it to be scorched on my memory forever but it was, and sitting on my back step and hearing the Whippoorwill, I lived it all over again. Tim had to speak to me several times to "bring me back" to reality and laughingly asked me where I had gone.
There are many things I can't remember....like where I left my glasses earlier, (LOL!) but it seems that some things just stick with you even if they are buried for a long time. For me it is usually a sensory response that triggers these memories. I hear a song, or a smell drifts by, or a certain taste of a food and like a time machine I am a million miles away in a different place and time. After the encounter I am always a little melancholy and can't quite figure out why. I wonder if I am supposed to be learning from or looking for something during these trips down memory lane? I wonder if Doctor Who feels this way when he returns to the present? Sometimes, I wonder if it is God's way of reminding me of all the blessings I have had in my life?
So, I am asking you, my blogging buddies, am I alone in taking these trips to A Time Forgotten?
