April 18, 2011

  • Memories in bits and pieces

    There's a song I can't get out of my head. It was by the Classics IV called Traces:

    Faded photographs
    covered now with lines and creases
    Tickets torn in half,
    memories in bits and pieces...

    My first "real" girlfriend friended me on facebook. I hadn't seen or talked to her in over 35 years. Naturally, I didn't know her married name and didn't recognize her immediately, but after a quick Google search--since she friended me first, I don't consider this stalking--I realized who she was and was quite surprised.

    Not a bad kind of surprise, mind you...

    I accepted her friending and we've messaged each other a couple times since. I was rather blown away by her memory. She was mentioning things that even I had forgotten, and I consider my memory to be... well, never mind. Maybe her memory should be better than mine as my mind has gone into some kind of other worldly mode in the past few years. I think they call it aging.

    In any case, I have the urge to write a whole bunch about my high school days again, but as I pondered those year--I actually should have been grading but this has been the best excuse to procrastinate without really realizing that I was procrastinating--I've come to realize that most of it is a collage of memories, no recollections of a string of events that might constitute a narrative. A kiss on the dance floor, an Japanese X-rated movie, her playing The Fish by Yes on the piano, giving each other the flu back and forth, Andy's Pool Hall, Sears, rabbit jacket, arguments, throwing up in her car after drinking too much champagne at the wedding of the band's drummer's brother... Geez. With all this, you'd think I could come up with something.

    Well, maybe I just need to ponder a bit longer. Maybe she'll message me something I had forgotten and it will jog my memories more completely. Until then I will be satisfied with letting the bits and pieces wash over me and amuse me during the downtime of teaching and grading.

Comments (4)

  • Thanks for sharing this song!! I like it very much!! MLB Jerseys

  • wow, she played Yes' The Fish on the piano. awesome! i think it's nice to connect with old relationships from the past on FB... 

  • so do i, i like this song very much!!

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  • Wow, that must have a been a blast of nostalgia to have your first ("real"?) girlfriend friend you on facebook! But you do point out something that I've been wandering about for a very long time. Why is it that memories just become more disembodied over time, the more you think about them? 

    I don't know if that's the right word for it, "disembodied", but to me, they become more "ghost-like"--less real. They have to be real. I know they are real because I remember them, but the more I think about a particular memory, the more I run through them like a movie-screening in my mind, the less clear the image becomes, until it's nothing more than just a faint feeling. 
    It's like taking a picture of your favorite memory, but instead of keeping that photo safe in a picture frame, you bring it everywhere with you. Carry it in your wallet, finger it when you're on the bus to school, use it as a bookmark to keep your place... and then one day, when you finally decide to look at it again, the corners of the picture is worn and the image isn't as clear as it used to be...

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