The Remember Whens

Our travels are starting to add up to a number of “remember whens” of important memories that we’ve been creating in the last two months. Such a pleasure to see what is sticking in the boys’ minds. Today there was a “remember when” from Mexico City as Geoff was remembering the phenomenal visit we had to the Frida Kahlo museum to see her garden, her bed, and the things in her home that fed her curiosity. 

I’ve been thinking about the feeling of riding our bikes through Kyoto two weeks ago and watching my boys naturally take to the city without any resistance to the extraordinary number of differences between life at home and life here in Japan. We learned to ride our bikes on the left side of the street and squeeze ourselves down alleyways that seem too small for cars — though the cars would pass us anyway, 

Toby has come out of nowhere with a “remember when” about his Spanish class in Oaxaca with Blanca, who may go down in history as his favorite teacher ever. 

I’m trying to get our boys to capture these seemingly memorable moments, whether through blog posts or journal entries or photos. But I know there will be so many more “remember whens” that will accumulate in their lives displacing those that pile up in this adventure.

I’m trying to embrace this idea of remembering without sadness or nostalgia, and instead as a collection of new parts of all of us. We may never go back to that Spanish class in Oaxaca and it may be a long time before Geoff visits Frida Kahlo’s home again in Mexico City, or Matt and I get to revisit this most extraordinary waterfall at the end of a Shinto and Buddhist pilgrimage in Wakayama, Japan. 

I hope I read this and remember these moments with the joy and the gift that they really are, rather than with sadness for the times already passed.