We live in a society that sometimes obsesses - at the least is very fascinated by - the artifacts of the past. Those things left behind by all those who came before. But few of us think about our own vestiges. What will be the traces of our own lives? Of our existence? The remnants of our journeys? 

First, I suppose we have to think about what an artifact is. Generally we think of it as a physical thing. A tool or a trinket that offers some lens into the time in which it was used, the person using it, or the culture they lived within. A coin, a comb, an ornate artistic thing that might provide some level of mystery. The crystal skulls come to mind. Over time their meaning was lost, but the mystery left in its stead can be more captivating than the truth most likely was. But aren’t there other artifacts that are less corporeal? That come down through history in the form of literature, legends, stories or cultural expectations. 

Consider the story of Sleepy Hollow for instance. While we all know it as Irving's Legend, it actually came from much deeper and far reaching places. He was a diplomat and heard the story while stationed in Germany. That story is thought to have also been a transplant from an even older place and time. Its bones are artifacts that reached out from another era to affect Irving's own journey and become a part of an artifact he’d leave behind. That same legend has reached out through American culture to create limitless artifacts, corporal and not, in the lives of many others. Not just people, but regions, cultures, buildings, towns, books, movies and a state, not to mention the country itself. 

And what is the journey if it’s not the stew from which those things emerge and mature? Halloween, for instance, born from thousands of years of journey’s by individuals, cultures and the things experienced on many journey’s. The birth of other cultural artifacts, only a concept in one mind, born on the lips to other’s ears, brought into existence through actions and made tradition through repetition. The artifact buried within being the heart that carries on through time and space to touch lives centuries in the future. 

So on our journey we should bear in mind that while it’s our pilgrimage, the things we leave in our wake create the ripples that affect others. As we move though our waters and waves we should strive to be the person who shares the beautiful places. Beyond that, take the time to show others things they’ll forever love and even things they may hate. Knowing what we don’t like, what we don’t want, can be just as important (and time saving) as the things we’ll forever long to repeat. It’s as much a part of our legacy as the physical things we leave behind. Long after we are gone, every time they visit any of those places, or do any of those things, or share them with the next person in the ripple you have created, your memory will be there to greet them. A sort of immortality in a very transient existence. 

That said, when you find yourself hesitating to share things, take to heart that there are many last times in our everyday lives. Much less in the journey itself. We rarely know it’s the last time. Upon occasion we’ll sit at a bedside and know that this is the last visit we’ll hold with this person. But what about the other last times? How many times have we stood at a casket instead? The last dinner we shared, we didn’t know. Or the last Christmas, or birthday or other occasion. But take that even further, to a more direct level. 

My journey consists largely of water in one way or another. One of those forms of water is kayaking. In recent years, as time slips away I find fewer and fewer of the people I started that journey with are standing there shoreside. I find myself looking back at the water, at the run I have just completed, sometimes before I have even broken down my gear and wondering. Is this the last time? Is this the last time I’ll see this section of water, the last time I’ll feel the spray through the last rapid. Will this be the last time I see, feel, experience this important aspect of my journey? 

I love autumn. The changing of the leaves, the cooling of the air, the sound the flurrying leaves make in the wake of the car on country roads. In recent years I wonder, as I watch it slip away into winter, is this my last Autumn? Will that be the last time I smell the fall air on a hike? I am in the Autumn of my own years, but that isn’t the main reason. I have always wondered these things, maybe just more of a larger scale. Maybe it’s being raised in a household where death was always present. The sibling we most respected and were most aware of, the one you always wanted to keep track of their location. He was easily the most elusive. Always around, lurking. Don’t get in the habit of saying “tomorrow”. 

What artifacts have I left behind? I think often the artifacts we leave behind are nuggets of feelings, thoughts or ideas. I will leave behind a love of books to my children and grandchildren and hopefully that will transcend time and continue on down the line. I am leaving nuggets of wisdom, though they will morph with the times and situations they settle into making a difference in. I leave a love of photography, writing but at the heart of those things, a desire to capture the essence of the moments, times, events, history of those images, those descriptions. Even in fiction we capture the history of the times in which they are written. I am leaving the artifacts of those skills, those drives in my wake. They are being picked up even in the youngest grandchildren now. Hopefully it will continue to those who come after as it flowed through me to them from the ones who came before. It is an artifact that I was given and am passing along. 

I think the most important artifact we leave behind is heart and soul. A sense of adventure, creativity, drive. We show those who come after what can be accomplished. That life is to be lived, not endured. The relentless struggle from cradle to grave to make the most of the time we have is a fight worth giving our energy. It’s not all about the work, but is also about the living, the breathing, the journey to leave behind a better world than the one we inherited. Even if the differences we make are not big ones, the little differences add up to a significant cache of very important artifacts.