Grab a towel, listen up. Stand close, so you don't miss anything. Exchange brow lifts, head tilts, any manner of secret communication. You are about the enter … the hallowed ground of Making Memories.
Isn't that the way it always is? You go to the holiday gathering, sometimes family, sometimes not.
And somehow you end up in the kitchen helping, prepping, clearing, washing, drying… you name it…
But what you're really doing is what my knitterly friends Paula and Mary like to call, "Making Memories."
Sometimes, it's in a difficult year, fraught with stress or sadness, of lives passed on, and pieces to pick up.
But more often than not, it's a pretty good year after all, you collectively decide.
A year to discuss and dissect, gossip and gab, with nearest and dearest, while you take a turn at the dish cloth. And not to exclude, but the same thing I think happens to the guy clan, when they are out wrestling trees, lights, crowds, lists, grocery carts and remote controls. It may not be as animated or as talkative, (after all, just a few words among guys tell a tale) but they also -- in their back-slapping, towel-snapping, Double-Dog-Dare-You-To ways -- are Making Memories.
It's the comings and goings, the doings and undoings.
It's the time the tree didn't fit in the door.
It's the time the tree fit in the door, but dropped all its needles.
It's the time you went caroling with the neighbors, singing highly off-key while someone carried the boom box (ok I might be dating myself right there) screaming Bruce Springsteen's Santa Claus is Coming to Town… but it didn't matter that it was colder than a you-know-what, cause you were having a blast and making the grandpas and grandmas in the neighborhood smile.
Or it's the time you spent in the emergency room on the holiday dealing with: a) a twisted ankle b)kidney stones c) genuine, stitch-needing kitchen mishaps d) fill in your own blank.
More likely, you remember how an ornament looked hanging from a branch, or the sheer joy on the face of a kid who just got what they always thought they wanted. Or maybe it was that first kiss under the mistletoe, I don't know.
What's important is to hold that memory close to your heart.
Not just at the holidays, but on the day you missed the promotion.
Or the day you found out you got the house, the girl, the guy, the bid, the job.
The day that you thought would never end, or the day that seemed to be over in an eye blink.
Use it as a measuring stick, a gold standard to what's important to your heart, your mind, your spirit.
Is it an "Omg, did you just see what so-and-so did" kind of moment?
Or is it just a time in your life when things aren't looking up, the rent is due and was that just your Ex-Factor (as my friend E and I like to call them) standing at the perfume counter buying a bauble for his Present Factor?
Some moments are meant for the pure joy of it all, a time when you think back and remember, "Yeah, that actually did happen to me and it was the coolest thing" or that made you laugh so hard you spewed coffee through your nose, or that you had to remove yourself so as to not interrupt the most somber of occasions. :)
Other moments seem to be bent on "purifying" us, hot fires of emotion, tempering us like gold, into being better human beings.
What's important here, I have found, is to pay attention.
Look for the good.
The lovely.
The innocent.
The pure at heart.
The clean of intention.
The God Wink.
Or.
The absurdly funny.
The wickedly silly.
The moment of splash-down, where all is revealed… and sometimes in a not so graceful way lol.
Every moment holds possibility.
Every moment holds change.
Every moment holds peace.
Even laughter.
You only have to choose the moment.
The moments.
And when you do, say to yourself, like I do, "Look, Mary! Paula! We're Making Memories!"
And promise me this.
Hold them deep in your heart for that rainy day, when you will need one special moment to make that day shine.
Have a Memorable One. :)
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