Memories

Today is November 11th–Veterans Day, Armistice Day. This is the anniversary of the end of World War I. Memories are a tricky thing. I am both thankful for them (which this gratitude list is steering me toward) and terrified, horrified, and saddened by them. That is the nature of maturing, I guess, being able to see both, the nuance, the layers. I wish it were simple. Happy. Sad. Yes. No. Off. On. Like switches. But no. It’s all of it all at once all the time.

I’d like to share a poem from the British poet, Siegfried Sassoon, whose work captured the zeitgeist of the soldiers’ experiences and the postwar sentiment in many ways. Here he recalls who and how he was prior to the experience of war and who he became afterward.

Memory

When I was young my heart and head were light,
And I was gay and feckless as a colt
Out in the fields, with morning in the may,
Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom.
O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free
And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time
Across the carolling meadows into June.

But now my heart is heavy-laden. I sit
Burning my dreams away beside the fire:
For death has made me wise and bitter and strong;
And I am rich in all that I have lost.
O starshine on the fields of long-ago,
Bring me the darkness and the nightingale;
Dim wealds of vanished summer, peace of home,
And silence; and the faces of my friends.

~Siegfried Sassoon

Yes, I am thankful for memories. I treasure them. I remember the before time and celebrate, and I know who I am now and I mourn in equal measure. It just is.