Memories: Hawaii

I'm still young in the grand scheme of things, but as I'm growing older I start to see how life experiences can lead to wisdom. I was staring up at the clouds tonight, and I tried to figure out what each cloud looked like as it floated by. I saw one that looked like a Big Mac, another looked like a skull, and another looked like a giant mushroom.

Then I got to thinking, how would I have viewed those same clouds when I was 10? What about when I was 5? I don't think I knew what a Big Mac was when I was five. Maybe I did, but maybe I would have just said hamburger instead. I preferred chicken nuggets. Hell, I still prefer chicken nuggets, I don't think I've ever had a Big Mac, but for some reason all I could think was "Big Mac" at the shape of said cloud. In attempt to cut off a ramble, I came to the realization that as you age and encounter more experiences, you have more connections to make, which gives one a broader understanding of... well, pretty much everything.

While I sat in the hot tub, looking up at the clouds floating by in the wind, I made a strong connection back to a hot tub I was in on a trip to Hawaii when I must have been 12 or 13. There was a big storm in Hawaii that day, and my sister and I huddled down in the hot tub as lawn chairs went scooting around the pool deck. There were two other kids in the hot tub with us, and we thought we were so cool for lasting out the storm. When the winds died down and we poked our heads up from the hot tub, almost all of the lawn chairs were squished against the far end of the pool deck, and a few had made their way into the pool.

I assume my mind made the connection because it was another time I was in a hot tub and it was stormy outside, but I hadn't thought of that memory for literally years. Tonight it came back to me like it had happened just the other day. There are some fuzzy parts of the memory. First, I'm not sure if my sister was there, and second, I can't remember how many other kids were in the hot tub, but I think 3 or 4 total. The interesting part to me is that this particular memory about Hawaii is lodged deep down in my brain somewhere, and it takes a connection for me to pull it up from the depths of my memory.

Other people must also experience these memories that seemingly come out of left field, but appear so vividly. I have them all the time, and I think I will start to write a few of them down when they come to me. I'm doing terribly at the NaNoWriMo, and I'm only at 1283 words after a week. I am supposed to be writing down 1667 words per day to hit the 50,000 mark by the end of the month. I haven't given up on it quite yet, but as long as I keep doing some sort of writing I will be happy, irregardless of whether it is the NaNoWriMo story or not.