Mementos

We did not travel much early in our marriage.  We did not have money for it, small children are something of a project to shuffle about on planes and into hotels or entertain in cars or RVs, and we do not have the intense love for travel that many others do, which makes the inconvenience and expense worth it for them. We went camping, which was James Dobson Approved as a family bonding experience, or visited our parents. Very local, all NH and MA. Tracy, as a suburban private-school girl, went to Europe in highschool and college, and both of us had gone on the classic 60s car trips to historical sites, memorialised with slides (not photos much in those days) of sullen children. And this was the year that David/Jonathan/Glenn didn't want to be with the rest of us, I can hear my mother narrating through clenched teeth. 

Our sons, at Christian schools that stressed foreign missions trips, became more blase about travel, enough so that I was resentful of their attitude about going to England and Scotland in 1997, which we had spent a considerable chunk of change on. It got better, slowly. The last twenty years we have been able to travel largely on our own, with the children watching after themselves if they were on the same trip.  We had tried to make scrapbooks and purchase significant mementos, believing we would review these happy memories later, perhaps sitting by the fire, or even with grandchildren on our knee. I admit when we have such things from an ancestor they are great treasures, and yes, we will someday be ancestors ourselves.

But this largely doesn't happen.

We did hit upon the idea of buying something from a local artist, and we have eventually devoted a wall of our house to such. It works because we do actually see it everyday. But Tracy discovered something that she likes better: dishtowels.  She doesn't keep them for display purposes, but for use, so that she can be reminded frequently of each place - Williamsburg, the Finger Lakes, Scituate, Spring, TX. They wear out and are more temporary, yes. It does seem a shame at first to use what others view as a sentimental object for such base practice as sopping up a bit of olive oil from the hands while preparing a meal. Yet it has proved more satisfying in the end than the other souvenirs, and we recommend the practice. Even I notice what is draped over the oven door handle at this point and give a bit of my brain to the reminiscence.