Remember do-overs? If it weren’t impossible, I used to think I’d have one of those please. For my life. Not too far back though, because, contrary to popular belief, I am borderline sane and have no desire to live through teen angst a second time.

I’d go back just far enough to appreciate skin without stretch marks and hair without gray. Back to the day when food still tasted good because calories didn’t count. The day when riding on the back of a Harley was cool, not suicidal and mini-skirts were hot, not embarrassing. Back to when my doctor was older than me and hadn’t heard of specialties, or HMO’s. Back before voicemail was a word and my only conversations some days were with my appliances. Back before shopping malls were a popular form of entertainment and before station wagons disguised as mini-vans came equipped with entertainment centers. Back before money was God and God couldn’t afford a decent place to live. Back before crime was rampant and politician was synonymous with criminal. (That may be a little too far back.) Back to the day when doing nothing was fun and time equaled only opportunity and potential. I’d live in the moment, every day and savor it. I’d eliminate guilt from my list of favorite words and forget what it felt like. I’d never let anyone convince me I didn’t have what it takes or take me anywhere I didn’t want to go. I’d never believe anyone who thought they knew me better than I knew myself or tried to tell me that I didn’t know my own mind.

But most days I’m glad it’s impossible for a life do-over. Sure, I might be living in Hawaii or married to Mel Gibson or working as a journalist and traveling all over the world. But Hawaii has flying cockroaches and Mel Gibson has six kids and strange women writing him love letters and the news is too depressing to write about and traveling is nice but so is home.

Each and every person I’ve known, place I’ve been to, or thing I’ve tripped over or bumped into has made the person I am today. I kind of like her. Most days. Sometimes. Good or bad, everyone makes a contribution to the life of others, shaping the people they are and the world we live in.

I now know that doing something is always more powerful than doing nothing. And going back can’t compare with moving forward. I can’t change the past, but I can make the rest of my time count. I won’t stress if I don’t finish the laundry or the dishes. I don’t care if I never make a million dollars. I won’t worry about another gray hair, and I definitely won’t give up or give in so easily if I truly need or want someone or something in my life to make it better. Maybe I’d ask for just one do-over though. The second time around, I’d write it all down. Before I forgot……..And so my family would have something more to laugh at even after I’m gone.

The Connection in Collections

If you’re going to start a collection, choose something that you can hold in your hands; something that won’t break the piggy bank; something to remember where you’ve been or where you’re going; to commemorate an occasion or mark the passing of time. Each time you pick something up from your collection, a memory will come back to you.

I collect key chains. Like most collections, it started by accident. It’s a strange thing to collect because they’re really not worth anything. They’re not unusual or expensive or unique or rare. Everyone probably has ten or twelve of them lying around somewhere. I doubt they’ll ever be mistaken for valuable antiques and when I die, they’ll probably be donated to the Goodwill or tossed in the dumpster along with all my hopelessly (even now) out of date wardrobe items that so appall my 24 year old daughter.

You can pick up a free keychain in a gas station or your bank or the grocery store. They’re sold in airports and gift shops and department stores all over the world. They’re small and portable bits of stone and plastic and wood and metal hanging from a ring or a clip and you can find them everywhere. They’re as common as penny collections and there’s an oversized one of those in my collection too. You can take anything and attach it to a 49¢ clip and chain and have an original key chain for your own collection.

When I first started collecting them, I carried them attached to my keys. But as my collection exceeded 20 and showed no sign of slowing, I had to find another place for them, as they were getting heavy enough to damage my ignition, not to mention my posture from carrying them around.

They went from hanging on magnetized hooks on the door of the refrigerator, down both sides of a four drawer filing cabinet and rested, at times in a plastic storage box when I couldn’t find a place to hang them. Sometimes little people would come to visit me. The collection had grown and the reached almost to the floor. Just the perfect height for little fingers. They couldn’t hurt them. Most were washable and the ones that weren’t could be replaced. They were most fascinated with the little train that played four different sounds when you pushed the button. That’s the only one that had to be replaced regularly as it ended up in toy bags and back packs on a regular basis after these visits.

Finally, my thoughtful husband bought me a giant bulletin board and hung it over my desk. (Actually the jangling of the chains always alerted me to his ice cream raids on the freezer but it was thoughtful.) The pushpin thumbtacks hold the collection as if someone had that very purpose in mind when they invented pushpins. I started to hang them in orderly lines. And then I thought it would be more interesting to see where they’d end up if I just hung them as I took them out of the box. The English crown hangs next to the Dutch shoes and the magic 8 ball hangs under the cuckoo clock from Germany. Nebraska and New Jersey coexist peacefully and the jade from Japan and Amethyst from China never clash, separated by the white quartz from a trip to sea out of Boston Harbor.

After awhile, the more well-traveled members of my family began picking them up for me. I have one from Singapore, four from Saudi Arabia and two from Switzerland. Some have the names of cities I’ve visited, and some are symbolic. I got one at a wedding that serves as a bottle opener and has the happy couple’s name and wedding date printed on it. They’re still married and have two kids. My father-in-law picks them up at the grocery store or the hardware store or he comes across the old ones he had stored in a junk drawer for years and gives me one each time he comes to visit. His choices are practical – there’s a miniature sewing kit, one that turns into a pair of manicure scissors, a small set of three tiny screwdrivers, a miniature calculator and a tiny camera. My mother picks up silly key chains with sayings like, “I’m not weird, I’m gifted” and “Weird but Lovable.” (Thanks, Mom. Subtle, she’s not.) There’s the troll my daughter used to have attached to her backpack for good luck in fourth grade. And the #3 that represents Dale Earnhardt, bought the year he died. My grandmother made her first transatlantic trip a few years ago to visit her sister in Hawaii so I have a surfboard and a pair of flip-flops, both in hot pink and neon green. There are the heavy pewter Hershey kisses from Hershey Park Pennsylvania, a moose from Maine and the Eiffel tower from Paris. The miniature picture frame key chains with my family hang closest to the desk, where I only have to glance up to see them. Number 1 Mom and Number 1 Dad hang side by side – a Christmas gift from my daughter when she was eight. She spent her whole allowance on those key chains. There’s a little plastic pig and a jolly green giant from my sister in law in Florida and a holographic angel from my niece in New York. A little devil hangs to the left and below Portuguese money and the moon turns it’s back on a star. The hearts hang in a little group below the angels and a roller blade and Tigger hangs out with Tommy Tomato. Miniature lanterns, flashlights and whistles, stuffed animals and a plastic turtle all have a special place on the board and in my memory.

If there are little boxes under the tree, at Christmas, I know they’re for me and I’m excited and relieved they aren’t expensive pieces of jewelry. They’re important little pieces of each giver, given to me to show me where they’ve been and who they are, attaching us by a link and a chain. And most important to me, that they were thinking of me while they were away. Maybe they’ll all come together when I’m gone and take back the ones they’ve given me and remember me when they start their own collection of key chains. And remember where they’ve been and who they are and maybe, if I’m lucky, they’ll remember me too.

Learning By Heart

You're old enough to make choices. Old enough to experience loss. Old enough to recognize true love. Old enough to be on your own. Old enough to make mistakes. Old enough to feel remorse. Old enough to understand the faults of others. Old enough to feel forgiveness. Old enough to care but not old enough to know better. Old enough to have a baby. Old enough to be a mother.

Remember the day you were born?

I learned awe and fear.

Remember learning how to tie your shoes? Taking your first steps? Reading your first book? When you learned how to ride a bike?

I learned pride in accomplishment.

Remember the Halloween we made your little red riding hood costume? I learned perseverance. And how to sew.

Remember that time at the library you came running out to greet me with a big hug, and I was so surprised you would do that in front of your friends, I didn't think to hug you back?

I learned awareness.

Remember blowing bubbles in the back yard at Nanny and Papa's?

I learned about time well spent.

Remember playing softball even when you couldn't get a hit?

I learned bravery.

Remember the times we yelled at you for no good reason? And made you cry? And you still hugged us good night and told us you loved us?

I learned forgiveness.

Remember how beautiful you felt being a bridesmaid in your Uncle's wedding?

I learned what true beauty was.

Remember when your best friend flirted with all your boyfriends? And was mean to you? And told all your secrets? You still hugged her when she cried.

I learned generosity of spirit and the true meaning of friendship.

Remember how jealous you felt when you were seven and became the oldest grandchild instead of the only one?

I learned empathy.

Remember the awe you felt when you held your new baby cousin?

I learned to recognize true love.

Remember that deficiency report you got in History? Oh, but wait, you forgot. You forgot to give it to me. I found it the other day.

I learned patience.

Remember the smell of baking Christmas cookies, the tranquil brilliance of the lights on the mantel, and surprising someone with a gift you'd made yourself?

I learned the true meaning of Christmas.

Remember your first date? You went bowling. You wouldn't wear the shoes. Because they were ugly. And you wouldn't eat your hamburger because you didn't want him to see you chew. Remember his freckles and his big ears?

I learned when to be silent.

Remember the disappointment of those two points that kept you from making the gymnastics team? But you kept practicing anyway.

I learned dedication.

Remember our girls only trip to Virginia? And white water tubing? And the Japanese steakhouse? And making fun of Alicia? And six of us in a five-passenger car? And laughing so hard it hurt?

I learned how to have fun.

And how to get ready to go in less than five minutes.

Remember best friends and giggling, sleepovers and dying your hair (and the new silver rug) purple? And that time you and your cousins dumped all my shampoos and conditioners into the bathtub to make your "potion?"

I learned how to laugh. (Later)

Remember the pain and the guilt visiting your best friend in the hospital after she overdosed?

I learned to listen.

When you were born, I was just old enough to have a baby. Old enough to worry I wasn't ready. Old enough to be scared I wouldn't be able to take care of you. Old enough to wonder what I could teach you. Old enough to doubt it would be enough. Old enough to ask if I could handle the responsibility. Old enough to realize I wasn't old enough. Old enough to love you and not too old to learn. Old enough to be a mother.

I've learned. You've taught me.

Children do the teaching and parents, if they're paying attention, do the learning. You taught me what and how to remember.

You taught me what was important and what wasn't.

Every day, you teach me to be better than I am.

Remember I love you with all that I am.

Remember I would sacrifice anything for you.

Remember how much you gave me just by being born.

Remember that you are a gift.

Never forget you are my heart.

I learned.

Bottled Memories

We were going to Nowhere, Maine again for vacation. Also referred to as “up home” and Houlton. Maine is the pine tree state. Aptly named because it was all we’d see for the last 489 miles of the 500-mile trip. The only thing they had more of was bugs, which would be splattered all over the windshield at the end of the trip, like some little buggy suicide convention we’d crashed by mistake.
The worst part was ten hours in the backseat of a Pontiac with my brother. He was 12 so everything he did annoyed me. And amused him. Enormously. Sitting next to a sweaty, giggling, humming, chanting, poking, twitchy little human torture machine for 500 miles wasn’t my idea of a dream vacation.

It probably wouldn’t even be warm enough to swim. Summer in northern Maine is more a window of opportunity than an actual season, and the lakes were all spring fed. If we left the windows open at night, there might be frost on the blankets in the morning, even in July. If my parents were just itching to visit the coldest, most boring place on the face of the earth, why couldn’t we have stayed there to live and gone someplace good on vacation.

Of course, to a fourteen year old, practically everything induces boredom, annoyance or a combination of both.

Maine had two savings graces. Nanny was one. And Grampie was the other. There have never been two people, before or since, who were happier to see me.

Escaping the backseat almost before the car stopped moving, running up the wooden steps of the little yellow gingerbread house, the twang of the spring as we’d fling open the screen door in our haste to get to the kitchen with it’s confetti colored floor, freshly mopped, “for company coming,” and getting the first hug erased my memory of the previous ten hours every time.
Ambitious after sitting for so long, we’d haul the suitcases upstairs. I always got the little blue bedroom with the slanted ceilings and a lock on the door because I was the oldest. The smell of the upstairs never changed, and I can never adequately describe or duplicate it. It smelled like memories, if memories could be bottled; slightly musty and a little bit sweet and just like home.

The enclosed back porch with its butter yellow walls and orangey bug light was the gathering place for the whole family to come visit every night after supper. Everyone would expectantly drive by the house, watching for the Massachusetts plates on whatever car we happened to have that year. They’d park in the “dooryard” when the driveway got full. All the aunts and uncles would bring the cousins and the neighbors who never moved away would bring their new grandchildren, and the kids my parents went to school with would stop by to catch up on the past year.

Eventually, all the grown-ups would leave for the “square” downtown just to see if it had changed since the year before. It never did. But they spent time there every year, savoring the sameness and each other’s company.

A lot of times, I was bored enough to find hanging the laundry with my grandmother a form of entertainment. She never lost her initial enchantment with automatic washing machines. She liked her dryer well enough, but she was having a love affair with her washing machine. My grandfather wasn’t jealous, though because he reaped the rewards of pristine white t-shirts and sweet smelling handkerchiefs every single day. We’d stand on the “doorstep” and I’d hand her the “wash” to hang on the old pulley line that went as far as the barn, even if the weatherman said rain. If it wasn’t raining yet, the clothes would dry. She had a lot more faith in her own predictions than she did in the weatherman’s. And if she did happen to miscalculate, we’d laugh as we hauled the clothesline hand over hand, getting in each other’s way and trying to get all the clothes back in the basket before they got too wet. Then we’d blame it on the weatherman. Accompanied by the drumming of the clothes in the dryer, she’d tell me stories of myself and show me pictures of my teenaged mother posing for the camera, while we nibbled the stash of chocolate candies she hid from my grandfather.

Grampie liked to go for rides almost as much as he loved to drive his grown children crazy. He’d sneak us candy, even if we didn’t eat our vegetables. We were allowed to drink coffee in the morning with six teaspoons of sugar and plenty of milk. Nanny let the girls read her True Confession magazines, and Grampie let the boys drive his truck. And they’d both let us stay up as long as we wanted to whenever our parents went out. It was one of “our little secrets.”

I did wish we lived there those summers. How did I forget this feeling of home from year to year?

What I wanted to forget wasn’t the drive or being trapped with my brother, or the cold or my idea of boredom. I wanted to forget having to watch Nanny and Grampie standing at the end of their driveway waving good-bye and looking smaller and lonelier and pretending to smile as we pulled away at the end of every vacation.

My last two trips to Maine weren’t the same as all the other trips. The ride was just as long. The trees and bugs were just as abundant. The little blue bedroom still smelled the same, and there was still candy hidden in the cupboards. All the aunts and uncles and cousins and friends were there. But there was no laundry hanging on the clothesline and no extra sweet coffee at the kitchen table because Maine’s saving graces had waved good-bye for the last time. And going to Maine for vacation will never feel like going home again.