Our Lady Will Rise Again

As Notre Dame burned yesterday there was a rare moment of unity around the globe as a sense of sadness gripped all.  The stills and videos of the crowd showed a rare sight – all eyes were visible – no heads bowed towards screens.  Strangers comforted strangers as all hoped at least the frame could be saved.  It is a rare phenomena that a single building – a religious institution at that – is so revered by so many across such a global expanse.  Whether you admire its architecture and art inside, the history of its walls which saw Napoleon rise and Joan of Arc beatified, or simply the memories of carefree travels – she is indeed the heart of Paris.

As dawn has risen, despite a desperate struggle throughout the night, our lady is battered yet not broken.  Her frame intact, she will be nourished by millions – both figuratively and literally as she regains her strength.  Once more she will house the relics of the faithful, provide scenes worthy of keepsake photos for the curious and memories for practically all in the world who have either crossed her threshold in their travels or in their dreams.

Presents and Memory

There have been numerous times in my life when I have felt anchored and in many ways trapped by materialism.  Having lived in the same house for 40+ years I have accumulated a lot of stuff as I imagine many others have as well.  Every few years I sold off various things to try and make some room and a little money.  No matter how much I sold it was still a daunting thought whenever I had the urge to move somewhere else.  What would I do with the rest of the “stuff”?  While it has provided me with a comfortable life, I think in many ways it has stifled the wanderer in me and perhaps that has not been such a good thing.

Since the death of my father I have found the notion of departing from even the most banal object, painful if not impossible.  The entire house has been transformed from objects into memories.  Everything is either something father gave me as a gift, something he used, something he never figured out how to use, etc.  Practically everything evokes a memory of him in one way or another.  Parting with any of it, especially for money, feels like a betrayal – a dismissal of all the memories it evokes.

I suppose the greatest testament to my father’s life is not that he had a lot of stuff, but my realization this Christmas that practically every object in this house was either a gift from him, or something he bought in order to exercise his creativity in order to inspire others.  The house is full of the aromas of selflessness, purpose and light.  How does one ever go back to looking at items as merely objects again?

Making Lunch

Scene:  My mother taking great care as to what goes into her lunch bag taking in excess of thirty minutes to get just the right combination of goodies.

It’s a fascinating scene watching my mother pack her lunch before work each day.  She isn’t like most people who just throw in whatever leftovers they have from the night before.  She really puts thought into it.

She considers how busy her day is likely to be as to how many snacks she puts in.  She includes less if she knows her day will have little to no down time.  More if the weather is bad and she know she will likely be staying indoors for lunch – thereby interacting with co-workers who might be interested in sampling her latest culinary experiments – always French of course.

She rarely if ever packs processed food.  It’s always natural ingredients like fruit and nuts or something she has made.  It really has nothing to do with being health conscious.  She is packing memories.  We cook together often so including that cookie or hamburger we made together reminds her during the course of a stressful day of the family waiting for her return that evening.  She also always includes a slice of tomato no matter the season because she used to have a tomato sandwich every day when she came home from school as a child with her mother.  My grandmother has long since passed away decades ago, but my mother has never forgotten to include a tomato.

Christmas Greetings

There is a great old phrase that goes something like, “whilst the pessimist and the realist are arguing over how much water is in the glass, the opportunist drinks it”.  It reminded me in part of one of my favourite poem’s from Estonian poet Kristiina Ehin which says in part, “in an instant this moment will be poured into the well of the past and from there can never be drawn out again.”

So as most of us begin our holiday celebrating these next few weeks lets make those special moments with our families and loved ones count.  Don’t over think it, just enjoy the memories as they come.  After all it’s not about what’s inside the package, it’s who hands it to you that is the most precious gift of all.

Smelling Memories

When one is conjuring up memories of the past typically the first thing you pull out of storage are visual remembrances.  A distant second would be sound memories.  Yet one of the most potent memory conjures of them all are memories of scent.  Yet it is one we rarely consciously consider.

Just think.  Images of places can be reproduced either through photos, videos or other technological means of capturing a single visual moment.  In the days before such technological marvels there were paintbrushes and even sticks of charcoal.  Even if you were not intending to capture a specific moment, oftentimes someone else around you will have captured it unbeknownst to you.  You can be in a library decades from now or surfing the web and all of a sudden there is that moment that you remember being a party to.

Sounds fall into a similar category in terms of being capable of being captured and re-experienced in their full original essence.  For pre-phonograph days we often used our own voices or objects around us to depict at least a semblance of a sound we recall.  Just think of babies saying “choo-choo” to describe a train or the old vaudeville days when rattling a sheet sounded like thunder.

The one element that, even with all the technology in the world, has largely evaded capture is smell.  Not fragrances like floral perfumes mind you but memories we all grow up with – fresh cut grass, the sulphur from an extinguished birthday candle,  cardboard from your favourite board game, the interior of your first car – the list is extensive.  It is impossible to reproduce it as it was at that exact moment.  Yet when we encounter a similar scent the memories come flooding back.

I think what makes memories extracted via smell even more special than those of our other senses is that it was unique to a singular moment in time.  It’s a bit like falling in love.  You’ll never forget that first skip in your heartbeat and are unlikely to ever have as magnificent an experience ever again.

Passing By The Window

I came across an anecdote attributed to Chinese philosophers which said in part that those we encounter in life are like people passing by a window.  No matter how short their own individual lives on earth are, all have equal merit in your particular life story because all have shared the exact same space in your “window” of experience. 

I can certainly agree with the notion that everyone has an opportunity to be memorable to someone else in some way.  Yet as unintended consequence of interpretation one might also say that the underlying coldness inherent in you being “inside” and everyone else being “outside” speaks volumes to the majority of relations in our modern world. 

“Resurrection” isn’t as uncommon as one might suppose.

I was watching a show on mechanics the other night and something occurred to me.  When we think of the term resurrection most people think of it purely in the context of human beings returning from the dead such as depicted in the Bible.  However if you take the human context out of it and look towards other things, you soon begin to realize that resurrection is all around us everyday. 

Take for instance a music concert.  What was live on stage does not have to live on via memory alone.  It can be relived again exactly as it was experienced the first time on CDs, DVDs, records and other recording devices.  The same goes for special events.  Who doesn’t record them on a camcorder these days?  You can bring the event back to life over and over again.  The only difference is the time and place in which it is re-experienced.

Some other random examples:  when you wash your clothes you are regenerating them back to their original form before they got dirty.  When you mutter a phrase your mother used to say without even knowing it, you are bringing her spirit back through your words.  You are in essence resurrected every morning when you recover from an inescapable period of unconsciousness. 

When you think about it we spend a great deal of time trying to capture and recreate the past which in turn erases a good deal of newness in our present.