Catch & Release
Putting it all out there, because maybe, these words may help someone who feels a bit caught up in life at the moment or maybe you were, and you want to see if your feelings were valid.
After my dad passed, about five years ago, I turned our spare room he used to stay in into my fly fishing room. Everything that means anything to me is in that room, a plethora of reels, fishing pictures, photos of my dad, mom, and my boys. Tucked away in the corner of the room is a small, antique hand-me-down bookcase. One shelf holds stacks of dust covered photo albums filled with faded memories, old concert tickets (Earth, Wind, and Fire was amazing!), birthday cards, pressed flowers, that shift around with every turn of the page. The plastic overlay and crusty, once sticky backings have aged to the point where it no longer serves its purpose. On another shelf sits my yearbooks from high school with glitter pen notes from my “bff” who tagged each page with our first names and our boyfriend’s last names that never came to fruition. But the most important shelf to me is the one that keeps my library of Dr. Seuss books I ritually read every night to my three boys before bed when they were small.
I have to admit, I keep things others wouldn’t, like a torn piece of paper taped on the fridge since 2012 with a note from my dad in his perfect “all caps” penmanship telling me the fried chicken I made him for dinner “was, well, ok…” I kept a handkerchief my mom used to dab her red lipstick with after she had thought she put too much on. It’s stored in my old jewelry box. If I hold it close enough, I can still smell a slight scent of her favorite perfume through the silk threads…Calvin Klein’s Eternity. She passed 11 years ago.
In another part of the spare room, several dried Aspen leaves along with part of an Aspen tree branch rests aside a photo of where my daughter is buried at the old ranch in Aspen Park. Next to that, a collection of small sticks, I carefully selected from the rivers we fished or trails we hiked, lay tabletop strategically placed, marked with inked dates and initials regarding their significance.
I got caught up in a moment the other day sitting in that spare room, reminiscing about all of the “lifetimes” it seems I have experienced, and how those lives have somehow caught up with my present self. It’s true, I’m noticing that I’m doing more “old people” things lately like shuffling around the kitchen pausing for my brain to tell me why I’m there and what I’m looking for. I caught myself sitting at a stop sign waiting for it to turn green the other day and thankful the car behind me was patient. I’m even wanting to stay at home more often. I know, lame. If you’re not there yet, I’ll save you a seat…and if you are…save me a seat.
I remember watching my parents do the same thing, sifting through their past lives, all of us kids sitting on the couch or laying on the floor, eating homemade buttered popcorn waiting for my dad to string up the Super 8 reel to reel movies. We’d laugh and speculate what was happening in those films with no audio and how important it was for my parents to revisit and share their past and how, in my mind, I tried so hard to comprehend the memories they narrated into my reality.
It was at that very moment, sitting in that room, when I realized all those “lifetimes,” every storybook, that lipstick-smeared handkerchief, faded photos, and mementos were valid. It was the release I was longing for. The clarity of everything experienced in life fades like our memories. Slightly embellished recounts bring them to the forefront and allow us to resurface the euphoria of the past. That’s why you probably have heard your parents or grandparents tell that one story over an over…let them tell it as many times as they want and each time they do, act like if it’s the first time you’ve heard it. Validate the euphoria of the story they tell. Catch these moments, now that they are still here, and release the memories that are the foundation of who you are.
