Day 265: for safe keeping

There in the attic we accumulate particular keepsakes.

Out of our peripheral vision but always overhead.

Some days, rainy ones, we want to climb up there and peruse through them.

For old times’ sake.

To shake our heads and get overwhelmed with emotion.

That distinctive blend of heartache mixed with gladness that comes from surveying the past.

Attics can hold trunks and trunks of treasure troves.

Some heavy with souvenirs.

Some light and simply waiting to be filled.

But the trunks themselves can be like solid, solitary crypts.

Their dusty lids silently reminding us that perhaps our greatest treasures do not require a final resting place.

Perhaps our greatest treasures do not need to be found again and again.

Like every beautiful thing that sits with time, they will age and fade away.

Try as we might, we cannot hold a moment in our hands forever.

Or fold it neatly over blue tissues and place it in an airtight box for preservation.

Attics will trick us into thinking we can.

The floors up there are not safe.

The foundation is not as strong as we expect it to be.

We can weigh it with too many trunks, lose our footing walking around, the floor will give way underneath us and we will fall right through.

When we crash to the ground with a loud thud and shield our heads from the falling debris of our carefully catalogued memories, we can hear the Attic shouting, “There was never a guarantee that I could hold you, or any of this, safely.”