Bottled Memories

Do you ever wish that you could hold on to a moment? A happy time where the world is so perfect that you want to hurry and capture it in your memory before it fades. But before this can be accomplished, the moment has passed, and the memory is only a shadow.

There are several points in my life where I wish my memories could have been bottled and tucked away to be saved for later. Moments in Rome are some of the most common. The moment I first saw the Pieta, or stood a the altar in Saint Peter's with tears streaming down my face, the cow bells in Austria, the stillness of mountains, seeing the Mona Lisa, the feel of riding the metro, and the faces of the group I learned to love. Moments that are gone and can never be recovered.

Every now and then somethings brings one of these moments to mind. A photo, a word, a smell...somehow, it transports me back to that moment for a split second.

Moments are such strange things. They are so beautiful, powerful and even life changing...and then they're gone. But if we didn't leave them behind, how could we move onto experiencing the moments that the future holds for us? We can't relive memories but there are new ones to be gained every day.

Perhaps that is how we make it through life. Treasuring moment past and hoping for the ones to come.

From memory lane,