Birthdays and Memory

Yesterday we celebrated Maren's birthday with her friends at the park. Outdoor parties are THE BEST. A game or two; some free play (on a great playground); specialized paper airplane construction, coloring, and flight; and cake and presents, of course.

One disadvantage of an outdoor location is that if you've forgotten something, you can't rustle around in the drawer to find it. We forgot tape and... the camera. Doh! An obliging sister-in-law snapped a few pictures on our behalf (thanks Deb!), so we'll have photographic proof that we didn't completely skip celebrating this year.

It seems impossible that I will forget these things, even without pictures... the shrieks of joy and too-loud voices; the way they all vibrate with unstoppable energy; each and every strand of hair glinting in pure, undistilled sunlight; the compulsion to run everywhere; one tooth sticking further and further out as the one behind pushes its way in; small acts of daring and independence on the playground equipment; the lopsidedness of that grin, the openness of that smile, the shyness in that giggle....

But I know these will slip through my fingers like water as the years pass, the images blurring and fading slightly.

That thought was meant to be tinged with bittersweet nostalgia (for a time that isn't the past yet!), but maybe it's just as well that memory marches on in this way. We want to remember each moment as though it was yesterday, but there's something to be said for knowing who another person is (and is becoming) so fully that the past is eclipsed, at least in part. The people who haven't known me for years are the ones who remember my ten-year-ago self most clearly. So here's to jumping in--with both feet--to what is real and here and today.