Infinity Reflection

Cold.

That has been the theme today:  Cold.  Bitter...

As I emerged from my warm cocoon, I saw the bright, cold light from the windows reaching through to me.  I could feel the frost on the window before I saw it.  The cold tile underneath bit at my soles.  I have spend the majority of the day layering myself with clothes and blankets, sipping hot coffee, and keeping close to the fire.

I saw a movie by myself for the first time in a long time.  Walking in an sitting in a dark theater by myself was something that reminded me of when I was a young adult in my hometown of Juneau.  Going to the movies was always a favorite of mine, and it still is.  There is something about the lights going down, and the projector releasing a story upon the screen.  The movie itself was set in the middle of a blizzard, so escaping the cold was not in the cards for even a couple hours in my imagination!

No, even as I sit here typing this entry, the wind is howling outside, prying its icy fingers around the frame of my window.  I sit confident, however, with layers of blankets and a snoozing dog by my side.  The cold will remain outside in the dark, and I will savor the last few minutes of consciousness in the glow of my bedside lamp while my thoughts grow fuzzy and slow.

A particular concept has been gnawing at me for the last year, and I find myself returning to the thought often:  my daughters are both old enough where I can remember actually being their age!  From this point on, I have actual memories and thoughts at their particular age stations in life.  I can remember being four years old...not much...but I do have some actual memories and details logged way back in my head.  I can remember being seven and what first grade was like and what I was doing at the time.  I have memories of learning to ride my bike and getting pizza with my dad and dancing to music....all the things I am now doing with my own kids.

At the same time, I am also finding myself doing some of the things I remember my own parents doing.  I drink coffee with cream and sugar.  I lay on the couch in comfortable jeans and nap.  I catch myself saying things my mom says, or thinking like my step-father.  These are all good things, just funny that I am doing them now as a parent.  Do we fall back onto these things?  Did my grandparents do these, too?  Are these behaviors passed-down or are they just making a single generational jump?

It is like the infinity reflection when you look into a mirror at your reflection in another mirror and see the same thing repeated forever.  Your motions are the motions are the motions.  My memories are the memories or my childhood and are those of my children and my parents.  While my life is not an exact reflection of my own childhood and that of my father or mother, it is similar in many respects.  Where I differ, small details become the new reflection to be discovered later by my own children when the time is right.  And so I go on reflecting, looking both forward, backward, and in the now...hoping to catch glimpses of what is right and pass that along while still holding onto it for myself.

What a beautiful idea:  We are what we reflect.  What we reflect is what we are.