Moments

More Blackberry airplane ramblings...

There have been certain moments in my life that I've wanted to preserve, to remember forever. But that I didn't want to record. To write down, or to capture in a picture or with a tape recorder. Because I wanted to remember them on my own.

I guess I wanted the muted memories. With the foresight that my mind would fade the moments with time, I closed my eyes and willed myself to remember.

To imprint the feeling into my brain. Not the sight. But the feeling.

One:

Sitting around my first campfire. Leaning back and seeing stars. Real stars, a sky full of them. I leaned back in the sand against a tree trunk. With a beer in my hand and laughter around me and stars above me.

We had spent the day driving for hours, singing along to road trip music on our way to the Oregon coast. We climbed and scrambled dangerously into a cove, where the cliffs and rock islands created a natural pool of water accessible only by strategic barefoot rock climbing and the help and hands of concerned, adventurous boys guiding your ankles into rocky footholds.

Watching seagulls and sea spray from a perch above the ocean, across a lighthouse that you would soon be racing each other to, as fast as you could across the cold sandy shore.

More rock scrambling and painful barefoot walks on narrow rocky paths. Using all your possible strength to hoist yourself up onto the ledge of a short, beautiful lighthouse.

So you could stand on a lighthouse. On a rocky, eroded cliff as the sun disappeared. And feel that you had lived your life.

And after all that came the fire. Your first campfire ever. You had fireworks and beer and hot dogs. And a pitch black night. And a perfect spot that for some reason sat just out of reach of the cell phone service available a few yards up the shore because no one should be distracted from such an evening filled with life and stars and fire and new friends.

-- Carolina Hidalgo