When I am feeling challenged by what I call our “Brave New World” I tend to return to the past in my souvenirs. This is a sign of aging I am sure, but I love to pick out one of my large collection of photo albums and revisit the scenes of years past.
Photos are so satisfying, much more than viewing them on the computer. I have saved matchbooks of restaurants that are long gone, greeting cards, and other bits of the past and I love to read old letters as well. Even perusing my box of old passports, drivers’ licenses, and my children’s art projects from grade school is a simple pleasure of mine.
I don’t own a Kindle, somehow, I can’t derive the same pleasure of reading electronically and I revel in losing myself in a good book, one that I can feel, smell, and put a bookmark between it well-turned pages. I hope that I will never go to a museum and view the last book in a glass case in the future! Even handwriting is on its way out and I know that no one will need to sign a checkbook but will we block print our signature in the future? Perhaps we will sign with a fingerprint or a scan mark imprinted on our skin!
Some of my favorite pleasures are seldom available but I long to experience them again. Lying on the warm sand on a beach, swimming underwater, and diving into a deep still pool or riding the waves on a surfboard. Dancing with abandonment and flexibility, and singing with the Sweet Adelines. Enjoying the excitement of a dramatic thunder and lightning storm and smelling the aroma of the lavender fields in the aftermath. Hugging my favorite dog Simba, our departed faithful German Shepherd.
Eating with my husband’s large loving family with much laughter, animated conversation, and wonderful simple food of the past with delicious stews that simmered for hours, young lamb chops grilled on branches from the vineyard, sweet home-grown tomatoes and succulent tree-ripened fruit, crusty French baguettes, and enjoying several glasses of chilled dry rose wine under the warm Provençal sun.
We are so blessed
to have a store of pleasurable experiences to weave into the fabric of our lives, I am forever grateful.
Jan Toulon