When you get to be my age, your life eventually becomes like a tremendously huge mountain consisting of heaped up rocks. Each rock represents some milestone in your life that affected you so much it became a memory. Some of the rocks in my pile from days gone by have been like a dated treasure trove. It's as if I came upon some that I hadn't picked up in years and all of a sudden discovered them again. For instance, there's the rock that is 50 years old when I won a violin solo scholarship but also got to experience the music of Jefferson Airplane, Cream, Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar's sitar in person and in recording. That one had a certain vibration to it. Then there's another rock I took that I gazed at in amazement which reminded me that I have had the same email address for 20 years... there was and is and will be a LOT to write about that. There's the fascinating rock from 45 years ago in which I graduated high school; I guess you could call it the 'coming of age' rock...and then 15 years hence I would embark on higher learning once again; shaping my life for the next 30 years definitely for the better, yet yearning for quite a different dream. Next to each other were rocks of association like the 40 year-old rock in which I took my first flight in an airplane across the country alongside the 20 year-old rock in which I took my first flight across the pond called the Atlantic. Both filled with excitement and anticipation along with a bit of fear and trepidation. There's the first time rocks and second time rocks and third time rocks...marriages, children, friends, jobs, deaths, adventures, tragedies, ecstasies. There are rocks and stones and pebbles and gravel and boulders and sand and it's simply so infinite it can't quite be measured; the never-ending memories of someone's life. Some of those rocks I don't really want to pick up or overturn again, but I do anyway, just to remind myself of the feeling that each of them possessed.
Mt. St. Helens finally erupted 36 years ago today. I was a young, pretty woman of 27 then. Although I was in awe of this once-in-a-lifetime stupendous geological event, I was also really sad that beautiful Sunday morning when she decided to blow her top. You see, it was rather a metaphor for me personally. My fiancé of 2 years was taking another gal to the company picnic instead of me on that day, so that event marked the end of something...both for the mountain and for me. It wasn't my first ending, nor my last, though. I worked for the company that day in May rather than watch the romantic goings on of my ex-fiancé and his new female toy in front of all my co-workers. My manager kept me sane by talking me through the tearful situation enough so that I could, at least, function in the supervisory role of my own department. When the volcanic event occurred, the ash was gathered in plastic test tubes by my manager as he made his way to Eastern Washington to help his parents save their orchards. When he got back, he gave all the employees these test tube samples filled with the infamous ethereal ash. I kept mine for 13 years, but I finally returned it to his youngest daughter...at his funeral. I told her how special he was to think of his co-workers on that historic day while he was on his way to help his own family. I wanted one of her own memory rocks to show the character of her beloved father. Something she could pick up and look at again and again, if she wanted to.
By the way, my ex-fiancé and his new squeeze didn't last. There is some justice in the world, after all!
So...whatever memory rocks are on the mountain of your life, they are yours to keep or they are yours to give away...in writing this I am choosing to share mine with you.
© 2016 Debbie Ballard (text only)
