Carousels and Arm Hair: these are the days of our lives!
There are some moments in your life that leave a lasting impression. You can instantly transport yourself back into the event and your memory is truly immersive - what did it look, smell, sound, feel like? I think in these moments that have real staying power I was fully present, which unfortunately is not the norm on any given day. There have been volumes written on this subject (Remember when the book The Power of Now was all the rage?) and it's the focus of most meditation sessions. What's interesting for me is that I'm conscious of this, and I have made purposeful efforts to be present at times when I hope to retain strong memories, but when I TRY... they don't stick. For whatever reason only the instances that happen organically seem to last, for me anyway. I wonder if with repeated practice and more regular meditation to reinforce this effort, my baseline level of awareness will increase and perhaps more will be retained?
...failed resolutions such as "meditate more" can be the topic of another entry!
So what do I remember? A few that stick very clearly in my mind -
-Standing on a balcony at the age of 17 overlooking Florence while on my first trip to Italy. It was sunset, bells in the cathedrals were ringing, pigeons were skimming the rooftops, and it smelled of ancient marble that had baked in the summer sun all day. I'm sure I was exhausted (those tours are not for the faint of heart!) but all I remember feeling is completely at peace, and a sense of truly belonging to that place. I don't know as if I've ever felt that sense of belonging - at least not at that level - since then. I'm curious if I returned there, would I still feel at home? Or was that where my 17 year old self felt most at peace, and now at 35 my soul longs for somewhere else?
-Riding the carousel on the Greenway with a friend just within the last couple of months. This one surprised me that it latched onto my memory banks. Not to minimize the fun of the day - we had a ball - but it's not a "grand" moment like a trip to Europe. It was a beautiful day, we explored a city we've both been to thousands of times before (she lives there!) yet still found new walkways, shops, restaurants, and made new memories together. I remember riding the fox on the carousel (they were all random critters), trying to figure out the song that was playing (never did), smelling the scent of the perfume on my scarf wafting into my face on the breeze, and feeling grateful. Grateful that I still had such good childhood friends who share my enthusiasm for things like riding carousels in our 30s, and grateful to have grown up and still live near such an incredible city.
-Driving down some random road in Nebraska with another friend on a road trip. Convertible top down, blue skies, wind whipping the scarf in my hair (it was a very Jackie O. look... not that she would have ever gone to Nebraska), good songs on the iPod, not another car as far as the eye could see ahead or behind us. And we won't discuss how fast we were probably driving because my mother may read this! It was a moment of complete freedom and absence of worry; these are far too few and fleeting in life.
So meaningful, living-in-the-moment memories aside, have you noticed the other things that stick with you like glue are moments of stress or humiliation? I don't know what kind of mental cruelty that is, allowing those to be just as fresh decades later when my efforts at TRYING to remember beautiful moments like my wedding fall by the wayside. Most of these happened in childhood/adolescence so I wonder if it's just a more impressionable and emotionally charged time. As for a few from the humiliation hit list -
-The spring fling when a boy from my class whom I was enamored with wouldn't dance with me. This was circa 6th grade or so and I spent weeks trying to find the perfect outfit (a blue flowered spaghetti strap dress layered over a lacy baby tee, as was the style back then) and also circa when asking a boy to dance meant you asked YOUR friends to ask HIS friends, because heaven forbid you actually speak to the boy in question. Unfortunately what this does is increase your audience for the inevitable moment of rejection. Many tears were shed at home with my mom later that night, and she didn't so much comfort me as pass along the painfully true notion that boys are often stupid, and when they grow up it doesn't really get any better so I had better get used to it! Go stitch THAT on a pillow, because that's some wisdom right there.
-Another school dance a few years later, around 8th grade, when I danced an entire song (the Macarena if you must know... I KNOW, but it was "cool" back then, I swear!) with my fly down. One of the in-crowd girls in school was motioning to me and trying to tell me for the entire length of the song and I thought she was admiring my dance moves. You may have to leave some room on that pillow to stitch that girls are sometimes stupid too.
I hope your lasting memories are more Italian sunsets and less school dance embarrassment, but that's life isn't it? You need that contrast of the bad with the good to give you some perspective and make the dazzling moments all the more special.
Now, back to that resolution to meditate more...maybe I can achieve some zen and clear out the memory banks to make space for MORE beautiful moments. I'm positive that time a boy told me in Spanish class that I had hairy arms (in perfect Spanish, what a linguist) REALLY doesn't need to stay in my brain. How's that for the good with the bad? Comes with the territory when you're Italian/Sicilian - we're basically furry gnomes - but it's worth it to come from a place of such history and grace. Just focus on how that stunning Tuscan sunlight glints off the rooftops and not how it makes your arm hair sparkle.