[Garden Memories - VII]
On the steps leading to the front door of my childhood home, thick green lawn, english ivy, and Liquidambars create a microclimate nearly twenty degrees cooler than the rest of the property. Even in the height of summer, the only warmth that reaches the steps are the gentle rays of the morning sun. The rest of the day it’s a shade oasis.
I can’t remember if we played volleyball all afternoon or finished up a long run. I can’t even remember the occasion. Or the month. Or the year, for that matter. But I do recollect Mom noticing us through the kitchen window and offering watermelon. Instead of a small wedge or two, she brought us each one quarter of a red-fleshed mammoth. We were overwhelmed by the abundance.
Unashamed, we ate every bit of that juicy, red sweetness.
To this day I can sense the coolness of those shady steps and the gratification of that watermelon wedge. Sometimes memories are sensations we carry with us in our bodies rather than images or video reels we carry in our minds. The details are long gone, but in our flesh are remnants of the feelings that the experience offered.
Memory in this way is a type of intuitive bridge between our bodies and our soul. The deepest, fullest experiences we have are not contingent on remembering details, per se, but are instead ones that touched us deeply and continue to move us from within. Several shady places in my mom’s gardens from my youth continue to influence me in this way.
