Memories and impressions

A few nights ago, a bunch of heady middle aged women giggled and danced away like teenagers in their old school auditorium. A little while later, we may have complained about aches and pains, knees and other; but in that moment, we giggled and reminisced and danced to numbers we considered the ‘coolest ever’ in our teen years.

Nostalgia was high, memories ran loose, everyone seemed the same, everyone seemed changed. We seemed like a bunch of teenagers trying to pass off as grown women, artificially aged with make-up and wrinkles, haircolor and pretend postures.

Memories have a strange way of reappearing from the deep abyss of past when we move to familiar locations. Both good and bad, they emerge uninhibited from a past submerged and forgotten.

We sang the school song and were amazed that we could sing it without even glancing at the words.

A friend I met after 25 years looked at me carefully and declared, “It was you”.
“Uh oh,” I thought apprehensively. Fortunately, the memory was silly and funny enough that we laughed. Although I did not remember it, it did seem like something I would say, and it tickled me. It tickled me to think that she would remember something like that after so long. 

I met my geometry teacher, who I adored. With startling clarity, out leapt a memory that I had forgotten since the day it occurred.  

A military general and president of a neighboring country had died in an aircrash. Relations being hostile between the two countries then (this is over 25 years ago), some girls in our class wrote the headline on the board. That somehow led to applause. Honestly, we were too young to have opinions of our own and merely reflected those around.

Somehow it made me uncomfortable and I didn’t want to join in. All the more unsettling, as the entire goal of that age is to fit in. Just then, this teacher stepped in and upon witnessing what was going on, gave us a talk on respecting others – especially the dead, no matter who they may have been or what they may have done.

Seeing her, I remembered that day with clarity. I also remembered the huge wave of relief I felt once she endorsed that applause was not required. I no longer felt unpatriotic. Her words gave me permission from a certain pressure to fit in.  

I shared the memory with her. In her typical no-nonsense, lets-not-get-too-sentimental manner, she nodded and then chatted about something else.

I wondered how many people had made impressions on my then young mind and to what extent. I wondered how many people continue to make impressions on our not-so-young minds. I wondered if we still have the capacity and flexibility to allow the impressions to happen.

I hope we still do.