Reflection #10

Cheers to the forgotten memories

I was cleaning out my desk a few days ago when I stumbled across an old receipt from our favorite restaurant, Pam's Patio Kitchen.  The faded receipt served as a memento of a dinner we had shared months prior.  Two previous versions of ourselves, perhaps with friends, it seems went out and, presumably, had a good time.  I noticed that we had purchased two bottles of Pinot Noir - Roar / Gary's Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands of California.  My wife and I love that wine, and we've certainly had many good times drinking it.  But, interestingly, I don’t remember, specifically, drinking those two bottles.  

I have vague recollections of drinking Roar in the past.  I recall opening a bottle in our kitchen one weekend, sometime in the past when, by coincidence, Katy Perry’s “Roar” came on the radio.  I thought that was pretty funny and now, to the annoyance or delight of my wife, I usually sing it when I open a bottle.  I also recall being excited once to buy a bottle of Roar at Total Wines because it is such a difficult wine to find, especially at a big box store.  I still remember being annoyed at having to wait to checkout that day because Gary’s Vineyard apparently doesn’t believe in printing barcodes on their bottles and the cashier had no idea how much to charge me. The cashier then went to ask a manager what to do while people buying bottles of whiskey behind me looked increasingly impatient and maybe just a tad angry at the wine snob at the front of the line. 

I later mentioned, somewhat jokingly to Dave, the owner of Pam’s Patio Kitchen, to tell Gary he needs to start using barcodes. (Dave is pretty good friends with Gary and that’s how we discovered the wine in the first place).   I sometimes have vague flashes of tasting Roar and my wife’s happy face as I opened various bottles of it in our past.   But I don’t recall anything more specific than those particular fragments of memory.  And, come to think of it, it’s not just Roar, I have a whole bucket of wine corks in my kitchen, and I'd be hard pressed to remember the details of drinking any of those bottles.  I know those were, mostly, good times.  But those times belong to different, younger people than we are today.  

I hope those past people made the most of those bottles of wine.  The whole notion strikes me as a bit odd.  We put so much effort into having good times, throwing good parties, having nice dinners,  and going out to eat with close friends.  But, for the most part, we can only enjoy those times as a temporary wisps of mist that the sun of time burns off as it rises.  Like the fog that rolls off the Pacific to quench the grapes that grow in the Santa Lucia Highlands, once the sun and time have done their work, those memories fade and, other than fleeting glimpses, they are no more.  Do they still exist, somewhere in our minds?  Could they be unlocked somehow?  What would be the point?  Let those happy times belong to those younger happy people.

As for the people we are now, when I open today's bottle of wine, I'll say a silent toast to our previous selves:  cheers to those faded memories and  those forgotten good times.  May we be as happy as they once were.

The memories belong to them, but the feeling of contentment remains a part of us and so, I take the only evidence that those bottles were ever enjoyed, a faded receipt from months ago, and I slowly crumple it up and throw it into the trash.