Did You Stop and Smell the Roses?

I begin Throw Back Thor’s Day with

Dear Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, mother of the Muses,

How I wish you interfered a bit more in human affairs as you reportedly did in ancient times, and force us all to slow down and smell those roses.

I’m still scanning old photos and looking at some of them I realize:

• I might remember some names, but I’ve long ago lost touch with the people
• I have no idea the details of what appears to have been a glorious day
• I remember wishing in the midst of this or that holiday bustle that I had a fast-forward remote to get it over with. 

How often go we go tearing through a day so intent on the destination, that we miss the journey?  I know toomany days on my morning 5-mile walk, I arrive back home and wonder how I got there.

Too few pictures of certain friends tell me we didn’t spend as much time together as we could and it’s too late now.  They’ve passed out of my life and some from this earth. Here's to Mark and Marsha.

I'm inserting into my life the Zen philosophy of ‘paying attention', and Facebook, however irritating it is sometimes, is one of my most useful tools    

It allows me to keep in touch with so many friends that might otherwise fall by the wayside, because the days are not long enough to visit and talk with everyone every day and many of them live far away. 

On FaceBook we can share short messages, pictures, family events, our own or our children’s milestones, and arrange to meet-up at various shared events - all those little things that keep a friendship alive and memory fresh. 

So as Mnemosyne has deserted me, Facebook, that meddlesome thing, allows me to keep in touch and share my friends lives and remember our times together a little better.