Memories

It is cold outside and vehicle starts with a groan. As I scrape the windows I really have to ask myself why the heck are we doing this. The cousins start filling out of the house and climb into the vehicle. Some are laughing and talking and others are just sitting there with their eyes glazed over as the remains of sleep still hold them in a trance. I get into the car and back it out the drive. The snow lined road reminds that it may be a little slick out there. The snow is piled high on either sides and we head out the valley. I can't remember how many years it's been since I've been out here. It's gotta be at least 6 or 7. My older brother and cousin and I start talking away as we start retracing the the past, our childhood. The younger siblings and cousins sit and listen to the stories we tell of watching grizzly bears hunt the farmers cows, or of driving home one Sabbath afternoon and seeing a logging truck tip over into the snow. My cousin who lived out the valley starts calling out the names of places her and her siblings created in their childhood games. It may seem silly to some, but those were the moments that we remember. We make the last corner the mitten comes into view. We all kinda hold our breath and watch to see if anything will have changed. The only differend I can see is that the road isn't is plowed as it used to be back when we all lived out there. We drive down teh mitten, just barely plowing snow infront of us. At the end of Grandma and Grandpa's drive way we come to a stop and all get out. The cold bites at our noses and even at 10 in the morning the sun is just barely rising above the trees. The snow shoes come out, and everyone straps in. We start out marching single file down the driveway. We alternate between conversation and silence. I look up and see the hills that surround us. I can see the hill across the river where I've spent hours with my dad and brother looking for mushrooms. I can just barely hear the river in the distance. The though of it's cold icy waters sends a shiver down my spine. I'm suddenly brought back to reality by the person infront of me stepping aside and telling me that it was my turn to break trail. I look down and realize that we are following in the footsteps of a moose. With a grin I realize that somethings in this world just don't change. As we keep walking the cold is forgotten and the jackets start coming off. Thanks to my little brother I don't have to pack mine. We round that last little corner where the road curves up slighty and there is our grandparents place. The house where at Christmas we would fill it to the brim. Where us older cousins can remember the adventures out behind it following the deer trails and playing tag, Idians and Cowboys, and cops and robbers. I look at the younger cousins and realize that they can only recognize the place by pictures or by coming back to visit in the years after all the fun times. It seems sad that we have such a memory here and while they may find it interesting they don't have the same attachment. We look around for a while, at the old cellar that I can distinctly finding rocks for and dumping them into the still soft cement. The sawdust pile where hours were spent making forts. Grandpa's hay shed where we helped to pile the hay. Grandma's massive gardent with all the potatoes, strawberries and Grandma's beloved floweres. The old barn on my aunt and uncle's place where we would find all the fun stuff like cow bells, and old guns. The moments in your childhood that you can never forget like me and Dixie being able to watch a mule being born. Later that day we looked across the river to where we used to live, and I remember the field flooding, the plane that ran out of fuel and landed in our field, and the wolves calling out their lonesome calls at night.

As we start the drive back to town the vehicle grows quiet as we feel the day of physical exertion catching up with us. I wonder why we do this? Why do we find it important to go back to our childhood? What is it exactly about our past that makes whole we are today? and then it hit me...it is exactly because of my childhood, that I'm the way I am now. That is why I have to go back to those places and remember my past....so I can remember who am. I can form my life and take where I want it, but it is back in the past that I find where the principles of my current life are grounded and sometimes I need to be re-reminded of that. It's remembering the past and the simplicity of childhood that reminds me that there is sense in this world.