The Tapestry of Life

The Tapestry of life

When I think of my life so far, I feel blessed. When I delve back all those years to my childhood, I smile. I had such a lovely 80s childhood in a loving family. My tapestry for this time is bright colours, woven with love, memories and stories that have stayed with me. 

Interwoven through this tapestry is family. Family was such an important thing, and still is. The unconditional love family can show you is wondrous at times.

The wonderful people in my family who guided and shaped me, made me into the person I am now. My parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. I owe them so much. They are all a part of me. I love that I have the friendly, openess of my grandad and the inner strength of my gran. When people say I remind them of my dad, I am over the moon! And I am so proud to tackle life as my mum does! I have collected beautiful moments along the way, some sad too. Life is about revisiting both.

I am always, always reminiscing. Remember when gran ..... Didn't we laugh? When you have had such a happy upbringing where people converse freely, you can't help but relay stories and memories. It's lovely remembering past times with close friends too. It takes you back to your younger days and reminds you of the old you. Sometimes we need reminding of this other person we used to be.

Music is a really good way of reminding you of special times. Sad times too. It is such a powerful tool for linking you with the past, especially when the music of our youth was so good! For me, it's the 80s and 90s that take me back and instantly cheer me up. It might be a Madonna song that gets me dancing and singing along or a dance tune from Chilled Ibiza that takes me back to the night club. It is an instant rewind to fun, fab times. You feel the good emotions and feelings take over you. 'What a feeling! Feeling's believing!' I'm there, with my leg warmers, dancing as if my life depended on it!

Songs remind us of people and places, of times in our lives we can only revisit momentarily. The feelings are real and the emotions can be very raw. 

And the slow, sad songs. One of my faves is INXS, Never tear us apart. The orchestra part gets me every time. And any Beatles songs. Memories of listening to them with my dad, looking at all the rich, album covers, especially Sargeant Pepper's. I'd listen to the bizarre lyrics and wonder if the Lovely Rita, Meter maid ever got to have tea with the lonely Eleanor Rigby. That would have been rather nice. In a cafe down Penny Lane. What a lovely name for a place!

Other things, like scents and smells take us back too. Certain perfumes, like my mum's Chanel No. 5 take me back to mum getting ready to go to a dinner and dance. She'd look so pretty with her brown, tonged her. My own Wonder woman! 

We all are a story. Or a novel with chapters. I love the idea of being a saga with intricately woven events and people; an interesting book to read. Yes. We have time to add to our narrative. Make it a good one.

I also love the idea, if our life is a story and we are the author, we can edit often. If we don't like the direction we are going or some of the characters, change it! 

I have to sing lyrics when I post them. I can't not!

I love this Beatles song but then I love the Beatles! I love the first lyrics. There are so many places I remember. My childhood homes and the homes of my grandparents. My clearest memories are of the terraced house and the backings where all the children would play, all different ages. We'd go onto the top car park and play rounders for hours. Or into the fields to play cricket. We climbed everywhere and came home needing a bath! Happy days and summer holidays that stretched out so far ahead. 

Everyone, well, nearly everyone got along! Everyone knew each other and looked out for each other. Folk just popped around for visits. I was from a very large family on my dad's side so there was always an aunty and uncle popping by, without texting, to see us. The biscuit barrel would come out and we'd go through the different Sport's biscuit pictures before eating them!  If my cousins came over, we'd play games or get the Strawberry Shortcake dolls out. My memory of this time is so clear. We'd make scenes using the Fuzzy Felts. I remember the hospital and the circus the most.

Visiting folk seemed to happen so much more.  I loved visiting all my family. Such happy memories, too of going to my grand parent's house. As I close my eyes, I am back there, in the front room, me sitting at the wondow, looking through the net curtain, then back to my smiling gran. She'd let me go through her costume jewellery box and I'd line them all up on the table, their coloured stones sparkling in the sun. I'd try them on, along with her high heels and silk gloves. She'd tell me wonderful stories of her and her sister dancing, of how she met my grandad when he was a soldier. I would sit and listen, wishing I'd been born into this era.

Then I'd pop into the garden where my lovely grandad grew his sweet peas and crysanthemums for showing. They smelled so gorgeous. He would pick a little bunch and, along with some shallots, I'd proudly take them home with me.

Just this. We all end up becoming memories. What kind of memory do you want to be?

I think of my family who are no longer with us often. We do. We miss them so much. The little things. The habits. The big things. It is a way of keeping them with us. Mainly the little things that all added together, mean so much. 

I am constantly saying superstitions my gran would say and then I laugh. I do follow some of them, especially not putting new shoes on the table or crossing on the stairs!

When you have loved hard, the loss is hard. It does make the past bitter sweet. You remember the time before your loss when everyone was together and you want to go back, just to have this time again with these precious people. 

This is why my photo albums mean so much to me. These photos all capture the happy moments. Our loved ones smile up at us from behind the clear film. A thousand feelings come back to us. 

I know I am lucky to have had a lovely childhood I can revisit in my mind, very lucky. I mentionned the bitter sweetness though to it. To losing loved ones who you shared these memories with. Nothing stays the same. Family members move away and lose touch. Families also have fall outs. It has happened in our extended family. Something I naively thought never, ever would. I want to just get along with everyone, like before. But life is not like that. Instead, I look back on the happier times, before the extended family split. 

I love the quote about the photos you are in with people you no longer are in touch with or don't see anymore. The love was there once. Treasure that. It is a reminder of the feelings and relationship that were once there, in your childhood. Funny thing is, when it comes to my family, I'm still the eight year old, excitedly opening my Christmas presents. Or the twelve year old, dancing with my aunties to Agga Do and laughing hysterically. I morph back into the child I was when they looked after me and protected me. But now I'm the adult, I'm now an aunty with nephews and neices looking up to me. 

When the older generation used to tell stories of the 'good, old days' before TV made us have square eyes or computers took over to make humans lazy.  Well, my generation would laugh! We'd hear our grandads retell another 'When I was a lad' story and we'd grin at each other. Oh, to be able to hear another such story. It makes me think of the nostalgic stories Cider with Rosie and Spit Nolan, the champion Trolley Racer. Fantastic days of 'making do' and being at one with nature. 

Well, I'm now saying, 'When I was at school' and relaying a story of a simpler time, before technology really did take over. At the end of the day, I've just been reminded that the 80s was 40 years ago! Noooo! That can't be right! 

But then, each generation thinks they lived in the best decades with the best music and fashion, don't they? 

It is about not realising at the time just how important the memories will be in times ahead. We are just enjoying the moments. We are just being. I do take photos but then consciously put my phone away. If I post on social media now, I mainly post afterwards. At first, I tried to do it there and then but just missed out on the action. Why view the whole experience through a lens when you have your own, true, none filtered view? 

With this in mind, and especially with the events of 2020, I intend to make more memories with those special to me. Don't wait for them, go and make them!

I love the idea of being a Moments collector. It brings to mind the BFG, where he goes around every home, at the end of the day and scoops all the day's monents up, putting them into a little Moments Jar to be made into a special Magic Moments juice! Which takes me back to my older Magic Moments blog!

It is such a good way of looking at life. Whilst we were on holiday, an emerald fell out of my new ring, somewhere onto the beach. Then, on fathing with my mask, my new earing was lost. I told myself, they are only materialistic things. It's true. Don't cry over a broken bracelet or a stained handbag. Or a split dress! I did love that chiffon dress though that split part way through a wedding!

So, at the end of the day, when you do look back on what you have accumulated, you will have a myriad of happy, exciting adventures with those closest to you; photos of the people who have meant something to you and have passed through your life, some main characters and others subsidiary to your story; momentoes of trips and visits to places that added to your character; letters, cards and notes from people who, at that time of writing, meant the entire world to you. 

I was talking to a lovely the friend the other day and we commented that we were both sentimental hoarders. So, the things we do keep are steeped in memories of loved ones. They all have a story behind them. So, I do agree, collect moments, not things. But many of my things are actually treasures. It might look like a cracked vase but that was the vase I brought my gran back from Portugal. And the old, faded leather bookmark? My dad's. All irreplacable.