When Summer starts to feel like Autumn,
I like to be reminded
we are still only halfway through
the holidays.
So a phone call from my brother
and we find ourselves driving
with our mother,
and my children,
up the Dublin mountains,
winding along on unfamiliar roads,
in search of a long ago, childish memory.
Of hot summer days spent picking strawberries,
complaining loudly about how boring it was,
and eating as much as we could,
secretly delighting in the intoxicating smell and colour of it all,
and the anticipation of jam! at the end of it all.
We found familiar, long forgotten roads on our way,
roads that motorways have taken away from us,
roads of our childhood.
Roads that stirred memories of funny family stories,
and people no longer with us.
And though we were clearly not seasoned early risers,
and pickings were slim on the ground,
we gathered raspberries
and filled our buckets as best we could,
intoxicated by the scent
and the anticipation of jam!
And the sun did not shine,
and no one complained,
and the journey home was filled with quiet,
and that intoxicating scent of summers past.
And I like to think these little things we do every day,
memories are made as easily as this,
someday to be taken out by one or other of these children of mine,
taken out and given a little shake and then smoothed out at the edges,
and not reexamined
but gently inhaled.
And they will be taken to a distant place they once were together,
when life was straightforward and full of simple passions,
and they can smile and nod to one another,
and maybe not even talk about it.
But it's enough.
