I have too many things to write about, and my attention span is way too short to remember everything I'd like to say. 'Hm. Such a tragedy', I can hear you sarcastically thinking. Shush, will you?
Anyway--I think we sometimes have very minor experiences that can lead us to think about or remember a whole realm of emotions. Let me explain a little: today, while walking from work to my car, (yes, I was back at work today--I just had a 24-hour bug, methinks), I was struck by the sensation of having a cool, wet wind blow on my face while the sky was steadily becoming a darker and darker shade of cloudy blue. It's been rainy and wet all day, a type of weather that I thoroughly enjoy, most likely because I grew up in a state (California) in which any rain at all was something to be vehemently grateful for. So, I really like wet weather--I love to sit shivering in my car and listen to the rain hit the roof while I read a book during my lunch hour. Which is actually weird, now that I think of it. But, on with my explanation.
I don't even know how to describe this...
Okay--I love weather. I'm not saying that I merely enjoy different meteorological phenomena--I love weather; I think there's something in it that somehow connects with that deepest part of me that I only seem to be able to communicate with when I'm completely alone. I remember that sometimes, when I was probably about 16 or so, I would go out onto our front lawn and sit on the grass with our family dog (she's been dead since my mission), and she and I would just turn our faces to the wind and let it blow over us while we watched the sunset. She was surprisingly easy to sit next to--didn't dash away chasing something or other--I think even then she was starting to feel old. I wonder why she enjoyed turning her face to the wind...She probably enjoyed the smells, I think, but I enjoyed the sensation of it--that sense that I was perched on the edge of something great, that the wind itself would blow up some wildness in me and make me run, rushing into...something I could never quite imagine or grasp, like being on the waking edge of a dream--close enough to remember colors, or a small piece of the plot, but not close enough to see how the pieces fit together into a comprehensible whole.
I'm not writing this at all well, or even what the point of this explanation is, and unfortunately I can't blame sickness this time for my inability to write what I want to. I hope you'll forgive my meanderings...but then, that's what this site is for, anyway, isn't it? *Shniffle.* Thanks, guys! *Gives collective hug.*
*Glares in disgust at herself for the cuteness of that last sentence. Collective hug, my foot. Actually, it's pretty weird to involve your foot in a collective hug...Wanders off in a confused fog...*
2 comments:
I totally agree with you about the weather...although I've never been able to express it so well, even to myself. Sometimes, I'll be walking, or sitting, or driving somewhere and the weather and smells will be the same as some other moment in my life and I'll feel totally transported back into that memory. Its amazing how all of the detailed and intricate emotions flood back to you, far more detailed than what my memory had retained. Even physical feelings like fatigue or fear come back...sometimes I can't even remember where I was when I felt that same way, I just know I was there before. Maybe this is somehow how God can be in all places and times at once. Maybe He has such control over memory and time that He can feel this same sense of being in two times and two places and two situations at once...with emotions and feelings as real in one time as in another. Ok, probably not, but that might be what it feels like anyway. So how do you like that, our divinity is manifest by a small and simple thing: the weather.
Pam, what great thoughts about God's perception of memory. I had never thought of it like that before, and I wonder if that's at least part of the reason, as you said, why all times are "now" to Him.
I was also struck by what you said about sometimes having a memory strike you with emotions without remembering exactly where they happened--"I just know I was there before." That really caught the sense of what I was trying to say--that certain things can evoke emotions, or the memory of emotions, and we experience them all over again.
Anyway--I just basically repeated what you said, but I really appreciate the comments you make on my postings. I love your insights!
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