Time Machine Dreams

At dinner last night Craig was talking about what Jaden was like as a baby, and we were both feeling slightly nostalgic about her baby days. I started thinking how nice it would be to go back in time to visit her for a day. Just to lift her baby weight in my arms and rub my cheek against hers. To take a bubble bath with her, and cradle her in my arms.

Then I stared thinking about all the days in my life I'd love to revisit. NOT to re-do, because I'm not about that. I'm very much a person who believes that every experience I've had or choice I've made have all led me here, to this one place. And I like where I am. So, if I had a Time Machine, here are some periods of my life I'd like to live again, exactly as they were.

I want to go back and relive the day when I was in first grade and my dad came home with a new two-wheeler bike and taught me to ride without training wheels. I can still hear my dog Scuffy's yip-yapping as she tried to keep up with me zooming up and down the gravel roads when I finally got the hang of it.

I would like to relive that snowy Winter in Oregon when I was a little girl. My family seemed so happy. My sisters and I had snowball fights in our front yard and made snow angels. On days too cold to go out, I'd read my Little House on the Prairie books, and my mom would let me help her with the baking. I will always remember smell of her bread as it came out of the oven, but I'd love to go back in time and eat some more.

I want to hang with my teen-aged sisters for awhile. We could fight over beauty products and try on each other's clothes, and gang up against our mom. We could tell secrets and laugh together, or go find some harmless trouble to get into.

I wish I could hold Kharli as a baby again, and hear the sound of her baby voice cooing and babbling. I want to see her blond ringlets curl around my fingers as I brush them. I want to pick her up and lift her high above my head and see her smile down at me.

I want to visit Christian when he was 4, and make some mud potions in the back yard. I'd ruffle his hair and cuddle him and talk to him about dinosaurs or Merlin or Legos. We could read before bed and I'd sing, "My Darling Child" as he fell asleep in the bottom bunk.

I'd like to go back and see one of Kharli's dance recitals. The year of "Austin Powers" and "Once Upon a December" was a pretty good one. It would be fun to do her make-up and ballet bun, and smile anxiously with the other dance moms as the girls run through their dress rehearsal.

I'd like to go back to the weekend I took Kharli and Christian camping with my family on the North Rim. I want to feel those rocks under my sleeping bag, and eat Christian's charred marshmallows, and help Kharli bait her fishing hook. I want to smell the woodsmoke from our campfire as I watch them laugh and play with their cousins.

It would be awesome to relive the day we went snorkeling in the coral reef off the coast of Key West in Florida. I remember how it felt to nervously let the kids swim away from me and know they could use their gear alone. I remember how the aqua-blue waves rolled us up and down as we held hands and smiled around our snorkels, squinting at the sun.

I'd like to walk across my college campus and buy a cup of coffee, and make chit-chat with people. I'd wander through the flower borders and hide-out from passing professors. I could feel again the hope and idealism that all college students feel as they cross the divide and begin their new journeys.

I'd like to go back to when Craig and I were first dating. Our early dates were fantastic as first dates go, and then I'd get to kiss him again for the first time. We could hold hands and ask "what if" and dream about possibilities. I'm still not quite sure what I did to get him to fall in love with me, but it would be so much fun to go back and do it all over again!

As I consider my running list, I notice that the Big Days aren't jumping out at me. You know, graduations, and weddings and babies being born and all that. Those are truly wonderful memories. The best. But my wishful thinking always goes back to those random days...the little details that held so much joy for me. I realize they are mostly about family. Nothing about money or owning things, or collecting possessions. It makes me even more determined to be happy with who I am and where I am...content at the center of my own private universe.

Although, as far as possessions go...a time machine for my birthday would be rather nice!