what are you gonna remember?

yesterday, in doing a bit of tidying up in preparation for today's arrival of the cleaner, i came across the picture above. it's husband as a boy of about 5 together with his mother (and a large radio and a very small peugeot) having lunch by the side of the road somewhere in norway. i love many things about the photo--especially that it naturally has that lomo feel to it--all i did was scan, no effects were applied whatsoever. husband is just so cute and so is that car. all husband remembers about it was that it was in norway, otherwise, it's a roadside stop for lunch like any of a hundred others he had as a child.

many years ago, during college, i attended a wedding of a work colleague. a bunch of us from the newspaper sat together and to be honest, it was a rather lame and not very happening wedding. so we decided to move on to a nearby bar. i was hemming and hawing about whether to go along or go home and one of the guys said, "come on, what are you gonna remember?" and he was right, was i going to remember going out and having fun with friends or was i going to remember going home to bed? it was just a line tossed off in a moment, but it has resonated with me ever since.

you might even say it's become a bit of a life philosophy. i have used it countless times when people were about to wander off rather than participating in some fun activity. or when they couldn't decide what they wanted to do. or when they thought about going to bed early. because aren't the things we remember things where we were active and present and participating and stayed up late? we don't remember an evening in front of the television, we remember an evening of dancing or playing cards or having a great conversation over good food. let's face it, you don't know whether you're alive or dead when you're watching t.v. (thanks barbara kingsolver).

i think of some of the times when i said "what are you gonna remember" and the things that i'm certain the people involved remember...

like the time that richard sang bohemian rhapsody in batangas while a typhoon raged just outside:

paying the singer extra to stay on (and on and on) so we could keep dancing at the sofitel in manila:

that time my very tall colleague went to hobbit house -- where all of the wait staff are little people:

the sight of this guy (actually, all 3 are guys) at the amazing show (a transvestite variety show in manila):

my sister licking spilled limoncello off the table:

those ridiculous shots where you take a picture of yourselves shaking your head and going "lalala":

apparently most of the times i said, "what are you gonna remember," we were in manila.

i'm not going to be in manila this weekend, but i hope to do something that i'll remember. what are you going to remember?