Hoo-hoo… come sit with me a moment.
I’ve been doing what I do best lately…
watching.
What I’ve noticed, though, is something curious about all of you.
Take the salmon.
They wander far… farther than seems reasonable for a creature with such a small tail.
Through wide oceans, past rushing waters, slipping by teeth and claws…
only to return, without hesitation, to the very same stretch of creek
where they first learned how to be.
And the swallows…
Oh, those determined little things.
Each spring they cross miles of sky and storm,
only to tuck themselves right back into the exact same corner of the world
they once called home.
Same ledge. Same breeze. Same place.
Now, I’ve heard some of you wonder about this.
“Why there?” you ask.
“Surely there are easier places… better places.”
But I don’t believe it’s about “better.”
I believe it’s about known.
And then… I began noticing something else.
You do it too.
Especially those of you who’ve gathered a few decades of living behind your eyes.
There’s a certain look…
a flicker…
when you meet someone who remembers your Once Upon a Time.
You sit together and begin gently piecing things back into place…
“Do you remember that little bakery on the corner?”
“Didn’t your dad always whistle in the garden?”
And when the other one says,
“Yes… I remember…”
Something shifts.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Suddenly, you’re not who you are today.
You’re that little girl again.
Your parents are still just down the hall.
And the world… well… it feels smaller. Softer. Possible again.
And isn’t it something…
how, when you were young, so much of it slipped by unnoticed?
The ordinary days.
The familiar faces.
The small, steady rhythms of life that felt like they’d always be there.
You didn’t know you were surrounded by treasures.
(You were too busy growing up…)
But time has a way of quietly changing the way you see.
And one day you realize…
those simple moments, those people, those places…
they were never ordinary at all.
They were everything.
You see…
having someone who remembers where you began
is no small thing.
Someone who knew your people…
who walked the same dusty roads…
who remembers how the air used to smell before the world grew louder…
That kind of remembering does more than comfort.
It confirms.
It says…
“Yes… that was real.”
“Yes… you were there.”
“Yes… you belonged.”
The salmon return because that river is written into them.
And I suspect…
so are your beginnings.
So when you feel that quiet pull toward someone who “knew you when,”
don’t be too quick to call it living in the past.
You’re not going backward.
You’re simply checking your compass.
And it’s a wise thing…
to remember where you started
before deciding where you’re going next.
So keep your roots in sight.
Keep finding one another.
And if you ever feel the nudge…
to reach back…
to call…
to say, “I was thinking about you” to someone from your past,
don’t ignore it.
Because you may think you’re just remembering…
but to them…
it might land in a quiet moment you’ll never see.
A moment where they were wondering
if anyone still held a piece of who they used to be.
And then… there you are.
Not with anything grand.
Just a memory.
But sometimes…
that’s the very thing that tells a person they weren’t forgotten.
And in a world that moves as quickly as yours does now…
being remembered can feel an awful lot like being found.
(Which, if I’m honest… is something you humans seem to need more than you let on.)
