There are things I want to remember

sunrise:  5:25

I noticed that there were multiple versions of beauty in the round this morning, from the orbs in the sky to the fruits of the Earth.

There are things I want to remember, moments of transcendance or elation that I want to hold in my heart and mind.

Yesterday evening I was out walking the dogs, whose nudging had finally pestered me away from the computer for their evening stroll.  I was preoccupied by the thoughts in my head, the talk I've been working on for next week about my sunrise year.

As I rounded the northeast corner of the back field at the bottom of the hill, the beauty of my surroundings finally reached my brain. A host of dragonflies was crossing and circling and hovering over the meadow, silhouetted against a sunset sky.  Their aeronautical acrobatics made for a dazzling air show, and the setting was exquisite.

I desperately wished for my camera, or my phone, some way to capture the scene.  We are so determined these days to package and transmit every notable (and every dull) incident in our lives even in the moment of their occurrence, and I am not immune to the inclination.  But the result, I think, can be that we disable our memory.

Snapping a photo or tweeting a thought can offer a great shared experience, but it enables the distracted brain.  The event has been recorded; our work is done.  We can go back to that preoccupied musing over the talk we're giving next week and clear the impression from our mind.

I had no instrument of recording, but I was stirred by this moment of dragonflies, suspended between a field of goldenrod and the pink and azure sky canvas of a summer sunset.  I stopped walking.  I stood and watched for a while, and tried to give it time to sink in.

There are things I want to remember.