SOUVENIRS

Shell Souvenirs, Kiawah Island, SC

I bet that you, like me, have collected more than a few souvenirs of our trips around the sun in our lifetime!  These tokens of remembrance are objects we acquire for the memories we associate with them.  Scholars have broadly classified souvenirs as markers of locations, pictorial images and symbolic natural items or mass-produced objects that can probably be purchased on-line at home.

I certainly like to take interesting and unique photographs of the world I’m traveling through at the time, both to record the journey and also to sharpen my focus on the place in time itself.  For instance, if I’m able to photograph a masterpiece painting, I will focus on only one section that catches my eye.  Some folks wouldn’t ever recognize that it was taken from such a recognizable work of art.  On trips into nature, I might gather up a small rock or shell as a remembrance.  Vandalizing an area is sadly all too common.  I remember walking up the Washington monument in DC and noticing all the remains of objects that had been torn from niches in the walls.  And watching a family encourage their child to pick colorful wild flowers close to a sign that read, “Take only memories, leave only footsteps” on a trail in a national park. 

But it isn’t just material things that we collect on our trips around the sun.  In the final analysis, it’s the relationships and lasting memories of good times that sustain us.  Unlike material souvenirs, these keepsakes do not change in importance over time.  They help to shape our character and their significance is priceless.  And only we can relate those souvenirs which we have retained in our possession over the years to our own personal experiences and the people we shared them with on our trips around the sun.