Traces Left Behind

My friend Rhoda lives in Santa Monica where she has an amazing home a block from one of my favorite shopping streets. She is a world traveler and imports artifacts like textiles and baskets and beaded necklaces from Zulu tribes. She gave me a lovely basket tightly woven to perfection. It has hand carved feet of an exotic wood and the top is some sort of reptilian creature beautifully hand carved from the same wood. This is from her private collection of artifacts. Inside this basket I keep the feathers of my beautiful Canary which passed on quite a few years ago. Why would I keep these?

Memory

How we connect moments inside our grey matter and what triggers those sensory flashes bringing us to a perfect experience thought long lost and forgotten is the subject of research and fascination into one of the still greatest mysteries. . .our brains.

These feathers bring to me the sounds of sweet music of the song of my bird and the color yellow.

Yellow is full of  sorrow, sweetness, and bright sunny days.

My mother had yellow criss cross curtains in the window of her kitchen.
They were always starched and so clean. I remember her ironing them on the day she told me she was going to a place to see J.F. Kennedy speak while he was running for President.

Our table was yellow and chrome. Underneath it is where I hid the flyswatter from her so she couldn't slap me.

I brought home a tiny yellow fuzzy ball of a baby chick which I hid in the backyard and tried my best to take care of but failed. I have always grieved for that baby chick.

I remember the taste of nectar from yellow honeysuckle flowers growing in our back yard.

My mom took me to a shop to buy me a dress and I couldn't find one.
The man in the store promised me he would give me this yellow blouse and matching skirt if I would lose some weight. This was later when I was in that twixt and tween age.
I have never forgotten that man or that skirt and blouse. I never went back. I did lose the weight.

My husband and I stood on Pebble Beach watching for that yellow flash
when the sun hits the water at the very last moment of the day.

Cadbury Easter Eggs with that yellow sweet center and yellow peeps of marshmallow brings to mind every Easter Sunday where I always think how many of these Easter Sundays I have lived. . .
20...
30...
40...
50...
think about it. . . every day that we live we have done this day how many times?
Did we do it right this time?

Today I see so many many yellow daffodils and pansy faces.

All of this is connected to yellow canary feathers that I hold dear inside the beautiful basket.

Do you have a touchstone?
Tell me, do. . .