I find that lately I have taken to watching content that touches on the past, although it seems like it just happened a few years ago.

Perhaps it is about a news story that pops in my head. The time I came home from school and found the paper on the front porch. Picking it up and reading that Charlie Manson and his troop of crazies had butchered Sharon Tate and her friends.

I lost some of my innocence that day standing on the concrete steps of my chidhood home.

It might be hearing a song that takes me somewhere, puts me in my first car on a hot summer day in Regina. At a friend’s house stoned out of my mind, so lost in the music. Lying in a row boat in the perfect sun on Headwaters lake outside of Peachland.

Eating a meal that was special, the taste, texture, aroma, atmosphere and presentation. Reading a story about one of my heroes dying, so many now! Reliving the past glories of Canada’s sporting accomplishments. The day I watched part of the 72 series in a lumber shop office, because even though my Father wanted to work all of Canada stopped!

I watch, listen, taste, hear and experience these things with mixed emotions, but what l do most is cry. The nostalgia for the victories, losses, sounds, flavours and events that I have loved, hated, felt numb in, enjoyed and raptured in all lead me to that place, tears.

I am sixty three and when I am gone there will be no one who has experienced these moments like me. I am continuing to make moments. That’s what living is, right? I just moved to Belize. I volunteer at a cat sanctuary. I watch and converse with people who make beautiful things. I eat food in a new way, but those old memories still have that power to make me shed tears.

I don’t know what else to say. Sometimes the emptiness is overpowering, sometimes I feel love, sometimes a nameless aching. Sometimes a comforting familiarity.

So if you come across me at some point and you see that my eye’s are leaking, come ask me. I will share apart of my life that you might be able to relate to and we will have a shared memory to keep us warm.