WATERCOLOR MEMORIES

I look around and see boxes stacked, waiting for the next trip to Iuka. How many CDs? How many old VHS tapes, including some of the good old Disney ones, events at church, Amy's graduation, Ginger and Fred? (We still have a TV with built-in player that works.) How many journals? How many old LPs? (We never bought a lot of them, but there is still quite a stack, and no workable turntable. But they can be found...)   I have sorted through old movies (some I taped for Mama when all she could get on her TV was fuzzy Tupelo station, before dishes and DirecTV) and cassettes (Amy at three "reading," Grateful in Hymn quartet, Amy singing "Forever and Ever, Amen" she recorded at the Mall of Memphis for her Daddy's birthday. And this is from just one storage buffet that I bought from Teri's Aunt Ruby years ago, and the side storage of an old entertainment center in one bedroom! See the green bag? Insurance claim from when I broke my leg.  Is it okay to burn or shred that stuff?  And what about cards? Mercy me, I am the worst when it comes to saving every greeting card we ever got.  And letters! I found some from Sher when they were in England in 1977. At least I can get all like things together and there's nothing like moving a life's belongings to know how many memories it brings back.  I have to make myself not handle every little thing, as Bren would say, and touch and rub it and ooh and aah.  Sorry, Bren, hard for me not to! I know a lot of this tendency, this madness!, came from being with Goobie and the great aunts - just wanting to keep their way of life in the country, at the old store; and from when our house burned. Most of those memories are in deep storage in my head and can only be viewed from the backs of my own eyes. So I keep "stuff." The perpetual librarian, historian, archivist.

Boxes of memories. Faded watercolor memories of the way we were...  It's the pictures I have a hard time looking at and we have albums and albums of those. That was going to be a major project when I retired - scanning pictures. Well, if that's your goal, get to it before you retire!

It's very nostalgic. Yet it's exciting - to be in our old hometown, in the "country" that I've always loved. I love Wynne and all our friends here. But when you know it's time, you just know. It's a different phase and stage of life. And of course I think of what we are told in the Bible - life is a vapor...moth and dust corrupts...we are here for such a short time. I'm most thankful for family we'll get to be with now and enjoying retirement together...