Think of a pleasant memory.

Yesterday in class we asked the participants to think back on pleasant memories of their childhoods.

Our purpose here was to discuss being an intentional family, spending time together on purpose... making memories on purpose.... making life happen instead of letting it happen to you.

A couple of the participants insisted that they had no pleasant memories, which was shocking and sad. I hope, in this particular case, that they were only being difficult and choosing not to participate. Eventually most of them came up with at least one, but it was just one more time where I thought of how privileged I am and how blessed.

I couldn't help but think back to my own childhood, and my mind spun with a million different memories all competing for the number one spot.

I remembered when my family moved into a duplex in Moulton. My brother and I took the biggest boxes and made them into rocket ships. We laid on our backs and drew buttons on the interior of the box (we picked up on the horizontal positioning after watching Apollo 13). We spent what seems like hours in hindsight simulating take-offs, pushing buttons and talking to ground control with authority.

I remembered making up "dances" with Adam. He, an avid wrestling fan, would convince me that we were making up cheerleading dances, and I willingly complied. In reality, Adam was testing out pile-drivers, diamond cutters, and figure fours (all wrestling moves) on me. Music videos played on the television in the background, and he'd set the "dance moves" to 8-counts. We would do our "routines" over and over again on a quest for perfection in the rec room. I don't recall ever questioning whether or not our dances were in fact dances, but I do remember being highly disappointed when Adam suddenly realized he was playing with his little sister and moved on to better, cooler things.

I remembered being at the beach with Rachel. We always shared a room with twin beds (Adam slept begrudgingly on the pull-out sofa bed), and we would lock him out and turn the bedroom into our personal playhouse. We'd jump from bed to bed, pretending to be Wendy and Peter Pan. We'd watch pedestrians on the sidewalk out our windows and make up stories about how they were robbers or newlyweds or immigrants.

I remembered the very special days when Mom let Adam and me finger paint in the kitchen floor when we were very little. She'd spread newspapers out and dress us in old t-shirts, and we'd paint our masterpieces as much on the newspaper as on our construction paper.

I remembered going on a road trip to Williamsburg, Virginia. I studied up on Pocahontas and John Smith before the trip and proudly announced facts about them from the backseat. Mom would distract Adam and me from fighting by asking us Trivial Pursuit questions and rewarding us with Gummy Life Savers. In the rare moments of peace, Adam and I would perform "surgery" on each other in the backseat using things we found in the floorboards. With a pen as my scalpel, I successfully extracted a battery from Adam's forearm. He later removed a tattoo from my arm with a blanket and an eraser.

I remembered making up dances to Mariah Carey songs with my childhood friend, Erica. We'd practiced into the early morning hours, listening to Fantasy over and over again.

So many good memories and such a blessed life. I really could go on, but there are more memories to be made. For instance, my co-worker is now performing a Boys II Men song on the other side of the cubicle.