Memorable Breezes

Somewhere around ten-thirty last night I stepped into my South Jordan yard, heard crickets chirping and felt the warm August breeze on my face and I was transported back over four decades into my childhood, and onto my Grandmother’s back porch on Wilson Avenue in Salt Lake City.

While I grew up with an Air Force base for a hometown, Salt Lake was my parent’s hometown. Whenever we were stationed in the United States we spent a portion of August in Salt Lake. We stayed with my paternal Grandparents, and the children played and slept on the beds in the enclosed back porch.

To fully understand why crickets and the heated August breeze in South Jordan would trigger such memories, you have to know that Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington and California (not to mention our homes in Europe) all sound and feel different than Salt Lake does. The sound of those crickets and that humid breeze are the most memorable parts of that sensation.

Heraclitus is quoted as saying “You cannot step twice in the same river,” and by that means that the movement of the elements that generate that river make it essentially different when you next step in it, even if it is minutes later and in the very same spot.

But his implication goes deeper and the multi-layered meanings became more evident to me last night.

When my Grandmother died the family sold her home and it has been very unsatisfying to drive by because the yard, the detached garage and the home have since changed so much that it just does not resemble the vacation home of my youth. Even if I stopped and asked the current owners to tour their home and yard, I can no longer physically visit the place of my memories.

So that place, those sounds and sensations on exist only in the long-stored memories of my mind.

For just a few seconds last night I stood in my South Jordan yard but all I saw was my Grandmother’s back yard. I heard the crickets of those August days, and felt the warmed night breeze of some forty odd years ago. The memory brought a tear as I thought of a time, place and people long gone.

And then my own yard returned, the weight of the trash bag in my hand reminded me of current duties and my sweet pause was over.