Since I have spent so much time in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan most of the things I would never forget are related to the bush or wildlife. In my early twenties I was walking my dog on the river near Fort McMurray (during the winter) and had just turned around to see if she was still near me when I saw a wolf sniffing her. She was in heat and the wolf was pretty interested. I watched for a while but as I didnt want wolflings I chased it off. So yeah, less than 10 feet from a wolf.
Seeing the Rock of Gibralar loming out of the sea, while on board a ship, incredible sight.
I was chaperoning a five-day student field trip to Camp Fox on Santa Catalina island. One of the activities was a night swim. The counselors mentioned bioluminescent plankton, and I was curious, but . . . I don’t know if words can ever do justice to what it was like.
You have to turn off your flashlight to see it, so the whole world is completely dark. But then, you move, and you’re outlined in green fairy dust, and you leave trails in the water. It was like being dusted with light.
The kids were either scared silly and demanded I keep my flashlight on so they could see me, or they scared me silly by swimming too far out from the beach. So, I didn’t get to bliss out as I’d have liked, and it was over far too soon.
When I was a kid, we always took our family vacations to Kansas. And that was almost always during winter or spring. But one year, when I was 11, we decided to head east instead, to some weird place called Cape Cod. I had no idea what to expect.
We got there and unpacked, changed into out bathing suits, and headed out to some mysterious place called a “beach.” We walked down a sand road, walked up a dune, and when we got to the top…
Guess what? There are places in the world with BIG WATER! And sand! and sunshine! Wow! I was astonished. I asked myself right then and there why anyone would choose to live anywhere else.
The next morning was equally unforgettable. We got to the top of the dune and I expected the same magic. Nope. Someone had taken the ocean away. There was nothing but wet sand for miles. My heart dropped. My first lesson in tides was a cruel mistress.
My first kiss, too. I had it embarrassingly late (I was 22 years old), and I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest as I tried to work up the courage. It was such a perfect kiss, not too much, not too little, and her lips were every bit as delectable as they looked. I was already madly in love with her (don’t worry, I’m not crazy, we’d been on several dates and had known each other beforehand). The following hours and days were the happiest I’d ever had in my life.
Picture it: Positano, Italy, 2007. I’m heading toward the isle of Capri while laying in the back of a speed boat. It’s a sweltering day, but the wind generated by the speed boat is keeping me cool. I look up into a perfect clear sky, water blue like I’ve never seen before. I was just laying on my back on this soft spongy cushion, feeling the wind whip over me. I look over and - yup - that’d be Mt. Vesuvius on the coastline. We stop at the Blue Grotto and dive in. I swim through the cavern immersed in water that seems to be glowing it is so pure and blue. I distinctly remember feeling like I was in a vacation brochure.
Then there was the restaurant, nestled into the mountainside. La Syrenuse. It was airy with a soft breeze. There was ivy - living ivy - crawling along the walls and ceiling. We sat on the veranda. I had a tomato and mozzarella salad while looking out over the harbor. It was like I’d never had mozzarella cheese until that moment… I still remember how soft and light it was.
All of this in a single day. I’ve never experienced anything like it.
olives, that sounds like a dream. I had a few moments like that last month, but not that intense and never for a full day.
I can remember playing guitar in my band - a couple of occasions in particular for this thread. I remember some awareness that I was fully immersed in the moment and seeing my fingers going to cool, interesting places. And I remember the euphoria of having some musicians I really, really respect telling me that I sounded great after the fact.
But I couldn’t recall what I played if my life depended on it. That is part of the allure of making music - to do it well, you must be deep inside the moment and the music, where your conscious brain isn’t part of the circuit. And finding that spot while musically communicating with your bandmates, and giving and receiving energy from an audience - it is vulnerable, validating and raw…so I learned on those handful of occasions.
To a listener/dancer/bar patron, it probably sounded like a reasonably-good version of that particular song; but in my head, I was fully aware that I had crossed a line and regarded myself differently as a musician past that point.
Nothing sensual or exotically scenic, although I’ve certainly has my share of those.
Around 2006 I was brought in to tour the headquarters for OnStar in the GM Renaissance Center in Detroit for an interactive project I was doing for them at my old job. I wasn’t expecting to see what essentially looked like mission control at NASA or JPL – not as those places really are, but like something you’d see in a blockbuster action, fictionalizing the CIA. Or like the Fringe Division in the Amber world of Fringe.
I half expected the huge monitors encompassing the room, displaying huge satellite maps, and blinking locators to make all those fake bleeping and blooping noises.
Probably not all that grand compared to places like JPL or the LHC, but I was expecting something more along the lines of a telemarketing call center with a dozen people with headsets and cubicles.
It’s so funny you should say that. I’ve lived in Florida all my life, and in recent years have had the opportunity to do some travelling (mostly in the US, plus a trip to Canada), and almost everywhere I’ve been was amazing. This summer, while we were on vacation in Colorado, I pondered whether the people who live there still groove on the beauty of the mountains all the time. I also pondered (as I always do) why people would want to come to Florida, for god’s sake. I finally concluded that if you’ve never seen the ocean, it would be pretty mind-blowing when you did.
Ugh, but the heat!
The last day of SOA in 2006. Many of the names of people murdered by the death squads in Central America were read aloud from the stage. Some were infants, name unknown. As each name was called out, we answered Presente in recognition that they were not forgotten.
It was all part of an amazing 12 day Mediterranean cruise courtesy of my husband’s grandparents. Spain, France, Italy, Greece, and Croatia. There were so many moments like that.
I used to be an EMT, I know what you mean…I kinda picked a positive outcome one on purpose.
Thus my comment in another thread
watching my youngest twin born limp, blue and not breathing, and then the half hour or so before she was able to breath unaided.
Seconds after my 6 pound, 13 ounce girl was born, she was placed gasping and crying on my breast, still covered in the quickly chilling slime of birth. She craned her neck, looked up at my face, blinked, and latched on and sucked mightily for several minutes. Everyone was still in the room, busily cleaning up and waiting to rush the new babe through all her checks and tests, but it was as though they all disappeared for awhile. For a blissful few minutes, surrounded by a close, blurry white tunnel of light: the baby I made did exactly what she and I were designed to do.
Sitting under Surprise Arch in the Fiery Furnace in Arches N.P. at night, in a violent thunderstorm. The rain was lashing down on both sides of us, just a few feet away, but we were fine.
Yeah, the birth of your first child has to be pretty close to the top of the list. My wife went into labour right after we got home from our first ante-natal class. We set off for the hospital about 11.30pm, me still refusing to believe this was not a false alarm. Twenty-one hours of worries and what-ifs later, I watched our little girl shoot out into the world (nobody tells you how fast they come out! 
), almost 10 weeks early but healthy, and for a few precious seconds nestle nestle onto my exhausted but elated wife (and pee over her, but we’ll forgive that), before being rushed off by the doctors. Immediate tears of relief and joy, but mostly relief.
That and the surreal experience, a couple of hours later, of driving home from the hospital, on my own, to an empty house that I’d left the previous morning on a normal work day with the vague knowledge that in two months or so we’d be having a baby. I posted this soon afterwards, because I had to share it with someone but it was the middle of the night…
Mine would be baby related as well. I had a lot of drugs when my daughter was born, and so I was too doped up to hold her when she was born and asked the nurse to take her so I wouldn’t drop her. They took her to the nursery and gave me sleeping pills and that’s all I remember until the nurse woke me up in the middle of the night shouting “wake up moejoe, it’s time to feed your baby!”
So the first time I really met her was in the middle of the night. It seemed like the whole hospital was asleep and it was just the two of us looking at each other and I was so curious about her that I started unbundling her, taking off the blankets and the hat and that weird t-shirt with the mitts and snaps. It was just so nice to be with her and I could tell she felt the same way about me so I cuddled her up under the covers with me and we fell asleep together. It was a perfect combination of wonder and happiness.
Seeing both my boys being born (nearly lost son #2).
Watching a pair of F-111’s do a night dump and burn while circling overhead for the RAAF’s 75th Anniversary celebrations.
When I was 15 my geologist father took me on a 3 week field trip into central Australia as a field-hand. Along with packing instrument and samples around I setup camp each night while dad & the other geologist were out working. I watched the colour change at sunset over Gosses Bluff and knew I was the only person for about 15km (if you look at the first photo in that link, I had a very simillar view but from the mountain range on the other side.
Same trip but in the Mt Isa region, I was followed by a pair of young dingo’s while out walking. Every time I stopped they would stop about 20 yards away and watch me, not aggresive just curious becuase I was almost certainly the first person they had ever seen (were were in some remote areas).
Local liberals will likely sneer at this, but it was meaningful to me.
Shortly after Desert Storm, Lee Greenwood gave a free concert on my base. Of course, he closed the show with God Bless the USA. The entire crow joined hands, shoulder to shoulder, and sang along. Some of us had gone to Iraq, others (including me) did not, but were involved in support roles stateside. Many of us, including me, had friends that didn’t come back. There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd. It was a powerful moment.