Smitten Kitten Graphic

My husband turns 81 today. We are 24 years apart, which once felt immense, and now feels like very little gap. Funny how the years seem to speed by so quickly, the more of them you attain. He says a year feels like two or three months, and that he will be remembering something and think in wonder, "That was 60 years ago," or "That was nearly 70 years ago. Why, it can't be!" I do know the feeling; I will be thinking of my college years, and suddenly realize that they are far, far in the past.

I made the mistake of going to Google Maps to "look" at places from my past. Oh, I felt dizzy. I felt so strange and heartsick. Gone! All of the places I had lived, all of the nooks and crannies I knew, the houses I biked past daily, the little clapboard house where I took piano lessons, the rented house just outside the college gates, all vanished. Yes, I understand the saying, "It threw me for a loop." I felt disoriented in time and space.

Ah, but that's life, I guess. Once I went with my grandmother to see her old homestead. We walked here, and we walked there, and she became very hesitant and faintly exclaimed, "It's gone! It's all gone! Impossible!"

But at least she had memories and although I can't see these heirlooms of the heart, at least I can remember them, if only through second-hand memories or my memories from a child's understanding.

I do wish Google would get interested in making maps from former decades. Maybe if people would donate the images from their past, Google could piece together how each block looked at a certain point in each decade. I would certainly spend too much time wandering around the "Memories Maps," but it would be a bittersweet joy to see the old places again.