Moments
Life is a long unbroken line that is continuous through time. What we remember is not, though. We remember moments in time, individual memories with a limited time frame. The parts in between these moments is not retained. These remembered chunks of time have attributes that we use for categorization. That is how we recall and connect them to other memories. The attributes are things like who, where and when, or some unique occurrence.
Recently I went on an eight and a half mile walk/jog from my house in Georgetown down to the Potomac river, then on to the Lincoln Memorial. I then went along the National Mall, passing the Washington Monument and on to the Capitol. On the way back I went on Massachusetts Avenue to Chinatown. I stopped there at a local establishment and had a beer (it was so hot and humid, I needed a break). While I was drinking I remembered a run many years ago. A few of us ran from the high school to Moon Park (where I jumped off of one of the play apparatus and caused a stress fracture in my left leg that would prevent me from finishing the Mission Bay Marathon a week later) and on to South Coast Plaza. We went into the mall and each had a milkshake, then ran back to school. The journey of a long run, and the mid-way drinks were the attributes that linked the two memories for me in that moment. I sat and recalled that run. The details are vague now, but the feeling of it is still clear. It was a good feeling.
It turns out that run was over thirty years ago.
