Old July Memories Still Grow In The Garden of Me

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This week in the US we celebrate our Independence Day. There’ll be fireworks, BBQs, parades, all kinds of gatherings, or relaxing for a day if you’re able.

July pushes up kernels of childhood from dormant regions of my mind and I cradle them as long as I can before they dribble back onto the ground of what was. I know next year they’ll be back, and thankfully so. Weirdly, this doesn’t happen at Christmas, even though my family celebrated that holiday to the hilt — and still does. I love Christmas. There’s so much to be excited about if you can keep the stress under lock and key. But, for whatever reason, it’s the 4th of July that causes such nostalgia in me.

I know recycled memories will grow a life of their own. I’m happy to breathe persistence into the images of those times and offer a home to those memories. It affords me visions of the lake we’d go to as a child, the family cookouts, the swimming and boating, the iridescent dragonflies, the cotton candy at the firemen’s picnics, and the fireworks at the end of it all.

Memories — they’re killers or bearers of joy, demons or angels. We replay them again and again — to detriment or to good. They’re simply doing their job, and so are we. The passing of time is a bittersweet vinyl record on the stereo — screech and melody, howl and hum.

You’d think nostalgia would only be for the elderly, but I recall having these nostalgic reflections back in my twenties. I’d remember how it was to be a child at that lake and how it felt to lay in the twin bed in the walk-up attic among a sea of twin beds with my cousins and siblings asleep on them. I’d miss how casual and unselfconscious it was to heap together in a room, a kid among kids, to drift off, feet and hands hanging off the edge of the bed.

The vibe of family togetherness in childhood is markedly different than later in life. It’s like being a vegetable in a soup with other veggies and never noticing you’re separate ingredients. You only see the soup. It’s a blending, an observing, and ultimately acceptance of being part of a larger whole. These days, though my siblings and I love each other dearly, we reside on different menus in different restaurants. Life carried on — as it does.

Of course, all this is driven by my memory, which is a hodgepodge of fact, fiction, weathered vision, re-jiggered moments and chronology, missing plotlines and characters, and scenes never logged or noticed in the first place. At every moment of every day, we take away only a tiny fraction of what is going on around us. This doesn’t even speak to the matter of our interpretation of that fraction we take away.

Yet, a dragonfly is still a dragonfly — lovely, cool, and interesting as interesting can get.

A dragonfly is a curious creature, and I sensed that back then, mostly because it looked so different than the other insects roaming the northern Pennsylvania lake environment. Though its brain is the size of a grain of rice, it’s the world’s fastest-flying insect. If I’d known this back then, I would have loved this beautiful critter even more. I would have tried to keep up with it in constant competition to no avail. Those things flitted like nobody’s business — lake edge to rock to bush to tree to lake. It seemed as busy as it seemed indecisive. Imagine how a curious kid would love such a thing.

By the end of summer, I’d logged as many memories of these insects as they’d logged generations — they don’t live long in their flighty adult stage.

Those fly-away creatures stood out to me back then, just like the laughter of the extended family group, the palm-sized sunfish fish my peers caught, and my grandfather’s soft chuckle. Even as a kid, I sensed Grandpa had a world of wisdom underneath those things. I miss that man and his mischievous chuckles, but I don’t keep him far.

When early July rolls around, these memories fill me and tell me, “Steph, your jaunt here on earth has been good.” Can one complain if they deeply understand the wackiness of a dragonfly’s flitty speed, or how well a burst of pyrotechnics high in the air will incite awe, or the fact that wispy-cotton sugar wrapped around a paper tube is the ticket to a childhood well lived?

Hardly.

I don’t know why my mind goes back to those days. I’ve had plenty of wonderful experiences around the 4th of July since then. Much larger fireworks displays in cities around the US, much finer cooking, beautiful scenery, and loads of happy community. But that’s memory for you. The longer I re-play something in my mind, the longer and heartier its lifespan.

I don’t have a problem with this. I’m happy to continue to water those times in my life each year — the perennials they are — and delight when they return each July in the garden of me. They keep beloved Uncle Louie and Aunt Mary alive and happily puttering in my garden, not to mention my grandparents. They keep creepy, dead pigs, slowly spinning on the spit above the fire in my garden, and the breaded frog legs served annually next to the potatoes.

They keep the chaos of the lake house dining area sprouting each year in my garden, with plates of food passing around and jokes and laughter flying. They keep the love of family returning each year, and I nurture it and fertilize it so its lushness will crowd out the inevitable harsh and prickly weeds family can bring, too.

We choose the tickets to a life well lived in the form of memory. Since life is hard as much as it’s happy, when we nurture memories of joyful times, this isn’t delusional. It’s smart like the dragonfly, a notorious predator, who takes what it needs.

I’ll never know what compels me to choose what I do for the long-term story of my life, and I might not truly know why I continue to cultivate it, but for these memories at this time of year, I love that they’re here with me. They’re vibrant in my mind. They give oxygen to my life. They are simple and sweet, reminders of times that had happy endings.

Thank you, family. Thank you, dragonflies.

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Happy Summer, friends!