If you want to preserve an experience forever, don't do it again! It's funny but true, well at least for me. Basically, if you are eating your favorite candy, and want to keep that wonderful taste the rest of your life? It's best to never eat that candy again. Left Vietnam since 1975, when I was 14, like most other Vietnamese refuge children, there are lot of things that I could not experience again in US. My feelings in VN were then preserved. Not only the feelings, but my languages, cultures, knowledge about a country so far away, all being put into a canned jar, tightly sealed. Sure, I can open that memory jar any time I want, and all that experiences rush back. I can still close my eyes and re-live the taste of that refreshing, sweet Vietnamese fruit in a summer day. I can describe in vivid details about an experience of my first day in school. They are all still here, safe in my memory; just because I could never encounter them again. Funny, isn't it? |