Mental images

I have heard that it's a sign of old age when a person starts to reminisce about the past.  I am not that old, but I have moments when I think about some of the most striking images that I have held in my mind.  These are good memories but mostly they are scenes that I can still remember as sparkling moments of beauty.

I want to share a few of them in photos, but it is hard to get the full impact without all the senses being involved.  Anyway, here is what I can best come up with:

Behind the home place where I grew up, there were woods and fields.  I would travel through the woods whenever I got a chance.  One day, I came upon a knoll overlooking a hay field.  The sun was starting to sink so part of the field was bathed in shadows while the rest had a glowing light.  I was stunned by the simple beauty of the light.  This became a special place for me to visit.  It soothed me when I was sad, giving comfort to an often confused teen.  I went back to this field when I was in college and was stunned to see that the hayfield had been changed into patio homes.  It made an important statement to me about the importance of green spaces and open land.

Another photo that I keep in my head is the blooming of rows of daffodils in the fields and woods around the old home place.  The town where I grew up was called the Daffodil Capitol, and these spring flowers were grown all around the town.  As the fields became overgrown with woods,  the old bulbs would keep producing flowers.  I would go into the forest and marvel at how the bulbs were still in rows beneath the trees that had grown up around them.  My mother would ask me to cut a bouquet for the house so we frequently had fresh flowers regularly in the spring from these ancient bulbs.

Another mental photo that I carry is from the winter snow falls.  I can clearly remember waking on a school day, looking out the window and seeing everything blanketed in white.  As soon as I could, I would have on boots, snow pants and a heavy coat and would be out in the snow.  It seemed magical to look towards the sky and see the flakes falling down.  My little world would be quiet and soft. (The photo above is of the "court green" in my home town.)

And then there was the water which was part of my life then and remains so now.  I remember one day in particular when the light was nearly blue and the water sparkled like a million diamonds were on it.  I had just met the woman that I was to marry and the beauty of the moment seemed to heighten all the senses.  The French call this time at twilight "l'heure bleue" because the light is so exceptional.  I just called it magical. 

And then there were early mornings on the river, getting up before sun rise to be on the water early to catch just the right tide.  The mental picture I hold is one of me with my father in his boat.  Just a boy and his father on the river, seeing the sun come up, smelling the salt air, and feeling the happiness of a day on the water. 

Fall is my favorite season and the falls when I was in Virginia were filled with a profusion of color.  I can see the old Virginia mountains that I would hike through during weekends in fall.  Walking up hills to find meadows where I would pitch a tent for the night, the mountains were light and dark, mysterious and deep.  I met some interesting people on those hikes, and I can still see them against the back drop of the Blue Ridge in my mind's eye. 

And then there is the imagery of Camden Harbor where my wife and I vacationed over a decade ago.  We had climbed up Mount Battie and arrived at the top to get a breathtaking view of the harbor and town.  It was another one of those moments that sticks with you, embedding in your mind.  We simply sat on a rock and put our arms around each other, taking it all in.  

I hope that I won't be a sentimental old fool when I grow old.  As hard as I try to photograph the beautiful moments that we share today, I know that I cannot truly capture the feeling of those moments with a camera.  It is something that will hopefully stay with me in my head to be recalled with great happiness many years from now.