I struggle with memories. It's not that I can't remember. I don't feel in this age of continuous growth that we need to feed our creative minds with memories. Being upfront and honest. How many of your memories have been rewritten by your imaginations curse to always want the best of times? My most recent trip back home to Montana wasn't designed to catch up on memories or check in with chapters already lived. I sat in the center of Optimist Park on a very cold June afternoon and challenged myself to write extremely fast. Not to think about anything falling into the journal. I wanted to come back to the page on a later date and see what living in the present was truly like. I challenged myself to be in the moment. Look at what we do when we check in with radio stations that play oldies. Are we there for the memories or are we trying to invite a great song into the presence of our present? Feels Like The First Time from Foreigner ignites me each time I hear it. Rather than think about being a teenager locked up in his bedroom pretending to be a radio disc jockey, the power of the song moves through me in this moment. Sitting at a dog park with Jazzie the rescued dog that has a fun loving way of being a loner. When I hear the song in 2018 it has a new meaning. It has a fresh start and finish. Then I put it away and can't wait to share another music date. I didn't fare well with the jotting down of thought at Optimist Park. I turned it into a flashback to which my modern self tries to defend. If it was a true memory writing moment the writer forgot some very important parts that took place on those waves of extremely green grass and now very tall trees.