Memory...imagination...mix

I can see them, in my mind's eye: my friends, the Weita family, in their house this morning. Jeff is in his office, hidden behind the wall made from book shelves. He is working at his computer tweeking the podcast for Deborah. His glasses are halfway down his nose and he intently peers through them. fingers flying on the keyboard. Deborah, she is in the living room, in "her" chair, a brown recliner, computer on her lap, doing lesson plans. There is at her elbow on a small round table her glass of ice tea. The tea is 2/3's gone and when it is gone it will be as if she is woken from a spell ... but not till then. She reaches for it to take a sip, fingers sure, never looking up -- so intent upon the work.   Lauren is curled up on the couch near her mother reading Beauty. She is savoring the moments of 'free' reading before school starts. Lindsey is in her bedroom: PINK and black! She is sitting in her desk chair playing her guitar. I can hear their bird whistling; I can hear the geese outside in the back squabbling and squawking.

Because I saw them last, earlier this week, I can see them now ~ in my mind's eye. "In my mind's eye" Isn't that just the most interesting phrase. I am so fascinated with memory. My memory holds pictures but then I can "drag-and-drop" those images into a fantasy imagination 'motion picture' in my mind. Now I know that in reality the Weita's are doing any number of things right now...not necessarily what I just narrated. But in my mind I can re-create their home, I can do a walk-through or I can jump and skip from room to room. I can 'hear' their laughter, I can hear Jeff call from the office or hear the geese outside -- but that sound has come and gone and all I hold is memory. Really, how can you remember sound!!???  I can people the stage of my mind with the images that I hold and make them do my will at my whim and bidding. If I want to I can slip entirely into fantasy and ... say ... make Jeff fly across the room and land on the island in the kitchen. (And I know, Jeff, as you read this, you just burst out laughing and I know you can see my image in your mind too!) I 'know' in my mind at the same time, that this IS fantasy, but my mind CAN make him do it. . .How amazing our mind!

I am grateful for this. What a gift God had given us in memory. I find it fascinating that the one thing we can know we remember, but not really remember and relive, is physical pain. I know for example that labor hurt, but while I remember the event I do not re-live the actual pain. Isn't that interesting. Especially when on the flip side, emotion IS re-lived. Gloriously ~ delight, joy, gratitude. Horribly ~ emotional pain: grief, rage, sadness, loss. And these memories are tied to and triggered by sight, but even more by sound -- especially music for me, and by smell. A scent can trigger an entire memory, replete with all the attendant emotion. It can kidnap you and stuff you right back into a former moment ~ captive to all the tumult and chaos. And I guess for me, it is the rougher emotions -- the ugly, sad, loss encrusted ones -- that are my primary kidnappers.

But I can ~ wonderfully, amazingly ~ I can choose to relive, to remember. I can go back to Florida. I can replay the tape of days. I can recall the lake behind their house and bring the sounds and the peace to my porch. I can close my eyes and wrap my hands around a cup of coffee and my mind around a memory. I can see my friends surrounding me in their living room and surrounding me with their love. I  can hear their laughter, I can almost feel myself sink into their couch, and into their friendship and love at the same time.