It could have been the sound of the church bells on my early morning walk, going through the last few years of late August memories. Parsing through the past was like looking across a vista, trying to make out what you could. Some of it was clear but a lot got lost at the edges where it curved and slipped out of view. There was a kind of coarse navigation to memories: big features I maneuvered around, like Covid or the January 6 insurrection, Lily going into treatment, me and my varied gigs or stints of unemployment.

I could see well back into the past by rereading old blog posts but that felt overly indulgent, for someone else to do, a different time. There was so much still every day, each morning. No horses out on the meadows yet, just the sprinklers and some birds cawing. The way the fog hangs on the meadows where it dips. Cutting through that into a patch of woods. A view of the radio tower on Tiger mountain not far away.

Then two horses come ambling out, their tails wagging and backs slumped down, heads in the grass sniffing. It’s like a painting every time. But with sounds and smells too, real life.

They leave a string of white Christmas lights up year round on a little bungalow that looks like the servant’s quarters or maybe someone who tends to the horses right by the equestrian center, where they teach kids how to ride. It’s lined with young willows that have a bark pattern like the coat of a white horse with brown patches. Some of the nearby houses are bonafide mansions with massive estates like you’d see in the English countryside. Manors I guess. Framed by tall trees with long stretches of lawn on all sides gone brown. Old wooden fences made of lodge pole, rustic. Every house has exterior lights on and long driveways. In the fall there will be smoke coming out of the chimneys, but this is not the kind of neighborhood that does Halloween decorations or needs an HOA.

I pass a stretch where Dawn and I came one time when the kids were little and we were staying with her mom not long after Dawn’s dad died. It was snowing and near Christmas, and there’s a picture of the four of us standing by a fence. Everyone is smiling but I look impatient, a forced grin: a missed moment immortalized, how I really was then and can still be. But we get a chance to remake ourselves every day.

Age was always important no matter how old I was but now being labeled “late midlife” seemed kind of bleak. You become more aware of the portion size. Parsing through late Augusts I couldn’t get very far on the horizon. There were our trips to Europe of course: two long stretches that started in August and were easy to conflate. I liked the idea of going back in October if I could; I loved the drama of the seasons turning and the 90-day trip we took to the UK ten years ago. Going back was both physical and emotional.

The blackberries are now perfect along my walk, you can even smell their ripeness in the cool morning air. Do memories have a ripeness too? Do they turn or just fade away? It’s the same sweet smell as the German grapes in the vineyards this time of year, the orchards too. If only we had church bells here it could be the same.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, travel

Tags: aging, Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, pacific northwest, prose