“This, Is Memories”, she told us when she handed us the little gold box tied with a bow. Small pins, of different colors, but all the same shape, lay carefully placed in Christmas tissue. Each pin marked a year, an annual symbol of the times we got to sleep under the pine trees and on top of the pine cones in a tent. Marking the years we walked a crowded street of strangers that smelled of leather and exhaust fumes. Reminding us of every hike we made to the top of Harney Peak and laid against the large rocks while sun, or even a little rain, soaked our clothes.

She was right. Each pin was a memory, a million memories, of the childhood I shared with my brother, of the parents I was blessed to come from and a family vacation to a place that meant so much more than a break from real life.

A year of rain, an anniversary, a year of sharing, a year of life…They were all marked with a commemorative pin.

The pins don’t need to exist for me to remember the rumble of Harley’s past the Needles Eye, or the glimmering light on Sylvan Lake The memories would still exist without the box of pins. But these are physical reminders of the highlights between every hardship. They are memories because I grew up in a family where we saved movie ticket stubs as reminders of our night. To remember we were blessed in this life. They were saved like every picture I drew in school, every rock I found along the creek, every story and every diary I wrote as a child. Because if there was anything I loved saving more than the pins, it was the words.

So this too, is memories. The stories I wrote to save every memory the pins, movie tickets, wristbands, and souvenir shop t-shirt symbolized to me.
Because my people are nothing if not nostalgic, and this way when the pins are lost while moving in a box of knick-knacks, the memories are there in words.