Milestones and Memories

As many of you may know I recently celebrated a big birthday and it was made all the more special by the well wishes of good friends near and far. As Helen Keller once stated, “My friends have made the story of my life.” And given our multiple moves over the last several years, it speaks volumes when people stay in touch across the miles, thanks in no small part to today’s technology of course.

Whether it is an email, text, call, or even a card (extra credit for those), a simple note of congratulations is a welcome reminder of the value one places on a relationship. As Proverbs 25:25 suggests, “Good news from far away refreshes like cold water when you are thirsty.” And it resonates all the more at extra special events such as a milestone birthday. After all, our memories are made indelible upon reflection of good deeds done by loved ones.

To thank family and friends who were kind enough to contact me I shared a highlight reel of my life to date and as one friend noted, “God has blessed you with a wonderful life.” And I also owe so much of life’s richness to my loving wife, Linda, who is my best friend and fellow companion on the journey of life.

Writes P.M. Forni, author of The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction: “The good life is a life nurtured by a healthy sense of self-worth, brightened by a positive outlook, warmed by a loving family and loyal friends, grounded in congenial and challenging work, and made meaningful by an involvement in something larger than ourselves.” Amen and Amen!

Remembering Special Places

They say time flies when you are having fun, and I think that applies to our move here to Virginia. It is hard to believe that it has been a year and a half since we left behind our dream of living at a lighthouse on the coast of Maine for life closer to my Southern roots and relatives. Yet it is funny to think about how often I whip out my phone to share with someone a photo of the Marshall Point lighthouse where we lived for three years.

All of which got me thinking about remembering special places on our personal journeys. According to John N. Cole, author of In Maine: Essays on Life’s Seasons, “Each of us has a landscape in our memories which is our ‘home landscape’—a place held forever in the circuits of our mind’s eye to which we return throughout our lives, in dreams, in reminiscence, and in the fleeting images of the past we use to evaluate the present.”

And as author Willa Cather suggested, “Out of every wandering in which people and places come and go in long successions, there is always one place remembered above the rest because the external or internal conditions were such that they most nearly produced happiness.” I must admit that place for us is most likely the coast of Maine, and specifically the village of Port Clyde, pictured above.

So it was with sorrow we learned this summer that within a short period of time the lighthouse had been struck by lightning—frying both the light and foghorn—and a separate fire had gutted the general store, boat landing, and village restaurant, where it apparently started. To put this tragedy in perspective, one needs to realize there is not much more to the village proper other than a café, kayak operation, ice cream parlor, and post office, where we used to get our mail.   

Friends informed us that the lighthouse quickly recovered and the owners of the village properties intend on rebuilding also. Yet lost in the flames of the inferno were reportedly several uninsured paintings by the renowned Wyeth family, which only adds insult to injury. To all involved Linda and I wish a speedy recovery and in the meantime I recall special memories of our years spent in a village by the sea.

Strolling Down Memory Lane

One of the parts I most enjoy about returning here to my home state of Virginia is getting to revisit some places and, in a sense, relive some experiences of living where I was born and bred. And part and parcel of reaping this reward is capturing memories as they manifest through writing and photography, two of my very favorite activities both personally and professionally.

Thus I strongly encourage others hoping to retain memories of their lives to intentionally capture them in order to catalog them for later reflection. As for me, a paper calendar helps chronicle important events, a penciled journal highlights personal milestones, and I edit all of my digital photographs as soon as I download them. Linda credits me with having a photographic memory but it is really just a recollection of compiled memories with accompanying images.

It was photographer Wright Morris who wrote in Time Pieces: Photographs, Writing, and Memory, “I glimpsed the connection between my own written words and the photographs I was taking. Rather than ponder the photograph, then describe my impressions, I found in what I had written the verbal images that enhanced, and enlarged upon, the photograph.” So true.

And as author Dan Kieran states, “Our existence is a narrative constructed through the experience of our own memory.” So with that thought in mind I recommend readers delete, discard, or otherwise destroy any memento that only serves to remind one of negative memories, bad experiences, toxic relationships, etc. Life is too short to dwell on the issues that no longer represent the person you are or the narrative you want to recount.

Conversely, I suggest compiling favorite photos and other memorabilia into albums, both digital and print, to enhance and facilitate the memory mining that makes for such enjoyable reminiscing. After all, our memories are only as strong as the reminders we give ourselves. Eventually, given a fresh perspective, our stroll down memory lane can be as poet T.S. Eliot described, “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Memorialize Mementos

In order to share some more practical examples of our minimalist process I delved into the archives and came up with course content that I presented to a class at the University of Maine’s local Senior College. And with Memorial Day coming up this weekend, I thought I’d list several simple suggestions to help you memorialize mementos. 

For our purposes here, I am defining such memorabilia as “stuff that serves to remind us of special moments in our lives.” As anyone who has ever tried to declutter sentimental stuff realizes, it is extremely easy to get sucked into the vortex of never-ending decision fatigue due to nostalgic attachments to our mementos, so please proceed accordingly. 

Frame favorite photographs: Whether digital or analog, consider framing your favorite photographs as visible reminders of highlights in your life. 

Box keepsake paperwork: Linda and I each have a shoe-box sized “memory box” to keep our favorite handwritten notes, greeting cards, and other printed matter. 

Use archival albums: There is a reason wedding albums and other photo collections are often the first things people reach for in a house fire. 

Preserve printed articles: As a writer I have saved my favorite article clippings in a portfolio book but you may prefer to laminate special written material.

Scrapbook miscellaneous items: Scrapbooking ticket stubs, meal receipts, and other paraphernalia is another way to salvage sentimental reminders. 

Sorting through our memorabilia can be very challenging. So, allow me to suggest that you DO NOT start with sentimental items when simplifying. It is far better to build up some momentum dealing with other stuff before wrestling with memory markers and their associated feelings. And give yourself ample time to process any issues that arise from your downsizing. Just don’t postpone the process indefinitely.

And lest I fail to address the digital detritus of our lives, remember to save, archive, and backup electronically any digital files you want to preserve. Social media sites may not be online forever so consider downloading any special content from them for your records. As with minimizing other stuff in our lives, I have found that identifying favorites helps to make the process more manageable. Here’s to happy memories!

A Day at the Coast

So, I got to thinking how much I enjoy reading about other “day in the life” stories and thought I’d share a sample of ours here. While the other day was not necessarily a typical one it was the simple sort we try to experience on a frequent basis. And since readers share with me the pleasure of living vicariously through our lighthouse experiences, here you are.

It started as a foggy morning here on the coast of Maine, which was not altogether unusual except for its soupiness. Upon waking with the lighthouse barely visible through our bedroom window Linda and I decided upon an impromptu stroll down the lane from the keeper’s cottage. I snatched my film camera loaded with a black and white roll and headed out the door to snap some photos from our front porch. Linda soon joined me and then we grabbed our smartphones to head out for some digital shots, such as the one pictured above. 

What unfolded was a special time for us since the thick fog scared off the usual morning visitors to our point on the peninsula. We thus had the entire area to ourselves as we leisurely navigated the mile or so down to the stone pillars marked Land’s End, where we turned around and then headed homeward, negotiating the rocky coast enveloped in misty fog and capturing it all with snapshots in time. 

Far from a distraction for us, photography is a means of documenting our lives at the lighthouse. As Gretchen Rubin writes in Happier at Home, “To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory, and photographs are a very helpful tool for prompting happy memories.” And it is fun sharing them with you all here. 

Upon arriving at home, we hopped in the car and headed to our general store for a hearty pancake breakfast before returning to our seaside cocoon and cozying up with reading material and relaxing tunes as the fog gradually lifted to the delight of several late-coming visitors. It was not entirely out of the ordinary but a special day nonetheless. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.” 

Finally, William Channing also espoused such a lifestyle: “To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly…in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden, grow up through the common.” And if our lives are likened to an ocean, then our days are waves, and they are guided by the rhythms of the tides.

The Boxes of Life

So I’ve been thinking about boxes lately. You see, both my father and my wife’s father passed away this summer. My father was cremated and his remains placed in a box and my father-in-law was buried in a traditional coffin. And there are other boxes that seem to define our lives. It may be cliché, but when we leave a job we typically cart our belongings out the door in a cardboard box. And we usually store our excess stuff at home in more boxes.

If you think about it, babies are placed in a type of box called cribs and our homes and autos are other types of boxes so it could be said that we inhabit one type of box or another during our lives all the way from the cradle to the grave. So what is it about boxes that make them so ubiquitous in our lives? The dictionary defines a box as a container used for storage that has sides and sometimes a lid. I think boxes are such a part of our lives because they are so useful as containers, both of stuff and the stuff of dreams.

We often talk about thinking “outside the box” and not wanting to feel “boxed in” but boxes represent built-in boundaries that are not necessarily bad. When my wife and I began our minimalist journey we chose to limit our stuff to a manageable number of portable boxes (and bags, but that is another post), which for us was half a dozen stackable plastic bins. And we each possess a couple of what we call memory boxes that contain precious family photos and other memorabilia. So boxes are not at all bad.

Boxes carry us from life to death and our stuff along with us, but it is important to remember that we cannot tote our stuff with us into the afterlife. Try as we might, even if we place valuables in our crypts the baubles will not accompany us into eternity. So it is vital that we place our limited attention where it truly deserves to reside and that is on each other and our invaluable relationships. It is one thing to gather and commemorate the lives of loved ones but much more pressing to celebrate and love one another here. 

The Burning House

Earlier this week it was reported that Sir Richard Branson’s luxury hideaway on his private retreat of Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands burned to the ground after being struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. What was amazing to me was the attitude of the billionaire entrepreneur toward his massive loss, especially given that his personal office containing priceless photographs was destroyed in the fire.

According to reports Branson’s reaction to the fire was one of gratitude that his family and friends, totaling 20 people in all, escaped injury: “At the end of the day, what you realize is that all that matters is the people that you love. Everything else is just stuff. And none of that stuff matters.” I couldn’t agree more. However, assuming one’s loved ones are safe, it helps to think about what one would try to rescue in the event of a catastrophe.

There is even a website called The Burning House that presents readers with the thought-provoking statement: “If your house was burning, what would you take with you? It’s a conflict between what’s practical, valuable and sentimental. What you would take reflects your interests, background and priorities. Think of it as an interview condensed into one question.”

It is a question that my wife and I have considered during our process of whittling our possessions down to the essential. Rather than speak for her I’ll simply list a dozen things here that I’d try to take with me in case of such an emergency, which is not a hypothetical proposition given this week’s Virginia earthquake and hurricane Irene heading toward us as I write.

In no particular order, my stuff to save would likely include my NKJV Bible, Moleskine notebook, Rolf wallet, Nokia phone, Leica camera, Powerbook laptop, iPod Touch, passport, memento box, wedding video, grandmother's picture, and copy of Thoreau's Walden. Also, I wear my wedding band at all times so I didn’t include that in the overall count of items.

The Day the Music Died

I am mourning. No, not the death of a loved one, thankfully. The demise of a radio station. One week ago today, my all-time favorite station, WLOQ 103.1, quit broadcasting its smooth jazz tunes over the FM airwaves after more than three decades in business. It is no exaggeration to say that it was one of my very favorite things about living here in Central Florida and I already miss it.

It was the last independently owned and operated commercial radio station in the Orlando market and won numerous accolades, including jazz station of the year by the National Association of Broadcasters. Fortunately for us long-time listeners the station isn’t disappearing completely, as it continues streaming live online at www.wloq.com.

Even as I listen to it while typing this at my favorite Starbucks I am reminded of when I was introduced to WLOQ in the autumn of 1985 upon first moving here. I’ve moved in and out of the area a couple of times through the years and each time one of the first things I did upon my return was program 103.1 into my radio station rotation.

I also have fond memories of attending various concerts sponsored by the station, including one by Kirk Whalum, pictured in the adjacent photo. Looking forward, I guess one benefit of the station’s migration to the internet is that I can listen to it whenever I am online so for that I am thankful. Thanks for the memories, WLOQ!