Simple Memories

Waiting in my backyard for the chicken to finish on the grill (hey, it's what I do), enjoying the weather in the fading daylight.  As I was looking up at the branches of some of the old oaks in my backyard  (the branching patterns recalling for me the divergence points in a person's own timeline), 

the breeze kicked up a notch or two.  The cool air moving across me felt strangely soft.  As I was enjoying this unexpected air-bathing sensation, I realized the wind was tickling my leg hairs as I stood there in my shorts and sandals.

Suddenly I was 13 or so and heading out to the beach for the first time that summer, as I excitedly exited the narrow pathway I always took to the expanse of the ocean, I was taking a moment to appreciate the beach itself - the waves, the sun, the stiff breeze carrying the unmistakeable smell of the sea.  This was The Beach - the one near my grandparent's house in Corsica; the Beach to which all others were compared since it is deep in my psyche as an Important Place.  I felt something tickling my legs and wondering if the wind was strong enough to be kicking up the sand and that was striking my legs? 

No, the wind didn't seem to be strong enough.  I looked down and discovered that my legs were covered with tiny hairs.  The wind tickling them was a new sensation.  It was the first time I had worn shorts outside in the wind since that pubescent transformation had happened.

That I am the same person right now in my backyard as I was some forty years ago really struck me.  I stood there in my own backyard, smelling the chicken reaching its final stages and feeling that breeze and marveling at that fact in the magical light of dusk.  I am that same person and yet not quite the same.  We are connected over all that time.  I contain the sum total of that 13 year old boy marveling at the sea and discovering that the wind can tickle you.  

That's amazing isn't it?