stories remembered

i was musing to myself a few minutes ago if could probably ask my mom for the oil paintings by our foyer when i am married. there are three paintings in our foyer but there is a particular one that i love. it depicts sort of a city market scene with a kalesa as the focal point. there are people all around and you can feel the busyness and the serenity all at once.

i remember spending time gazing upon that painting and building upon it with my mind. what lies beyond the canvas? what happens beyond the street? where is the kalesa off to? where are the people going? it is amazing how a memory is spurred on by just one item. this reference to my past might be mundane to others but it means a lot to me. just remembering it now warms my heart.

my imagination sure reached out beyond the rectangle of the canvas and beyond the pages of a book. there is one picture book that i remember, it is the story of a parisian girl who lost her pet turtle rosalie. she begins to look for rosalie all over the streets of paris. past the art stalls lining the seine, atop the buildings overlooking the old quarter, along the market in the city, passing couples and young parisian girls much like herself dressed in capelets, dresses and ballet shoes. such was the imagery of the book that i have always thought of paris in this way. gargoyles on the corners of buildings, the cobblestones on the pavement, the lazy river seine, the paintings being sold by painters, the orderliness of the market. the artistry of the drawings must have popped out at me as a child and now i can remember that it was one of my well-loved books. how i pored over it and looked at the drawings intently. at a young age i didn't know that paris was the city of lights, that it was a popular honeymoon destination, that the city was a work of art in itself or any of the things i know about the city now. but i sensed all these things in my childhood, all from one picture book.

i so wish that my future son or daughter could celebrate the power of imagination with such joy and warmth. that their childhood will be punctuated by books, paintings, stories and songs. how i would love for them to have the moment that i'm having now. remembering, remembering lovely memories.