You Can’t Put Your Arms ‘Round A Memory

Life is a series of events; I think we can all agree on that.  And over time those events blur and combine until all you remember are moments.  Think about it; what did you do yesterday?  How much of it can you remember, in detail?  You can’t.  Now think of everything you’ve forgotten from last week.  Last month.  2012.  Beyond.

It's called "getting old". Sorry.

It’s called “getting old”. Sorry.

Depressed now?

This experience intensifies the older you get.  The more memories pile up, the more your brain files them away because there’s only so much information you can recall at a given point, or need to.  But the memories aren’t gone – they’re just hidden away, buried and waiting to be unearthed.  I like to think of them in some steel lockbox, beneath a pile of dirt.  Even knowing they’re just beneath the surface isn’t enough – you have to find a way in.

Music is a great key; think of how many times you hear a song you haven’t listened to in years, and how often some memory long since buried is dredged to the surface.  That song and that memory are forever linked.  You can’t have one without the other.  I get that sensation every time I hear “Velouria” by the Pixies, “Black” by Pearl Jam, and “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told)” by The White Stripes.  The songs and the memory associated with them is forever linked.

Random White Stripes insert, because White Stripes.

Random White Stripes insert, because White Stripes.

But that’s a digression.  We’re talking about memory, and specifically those memories suffused in a golden hue; those transcendent moments, those perfect days that sneak up on you.  We all have them. Ask anybody and they’ll have a grocery list of them, and a lot of them are rightfully great memories.  The day they got married, the day their son or daughter was born, the day they graduated college, or accomplished something extraordinary.

Thing is, I’m not talking about those days – I’m talking about the ones where everything just seemed to just happen in the right fashion.  The days where you woke up and figured it was going to be just another day.  You’ll never forget it because it began so innocuously but when it ended you realized it was one of those days you’ll never forget.

For me the first would have been in late spring 1990.  I had been enlisted to help a friend open up his family cottage.  It was about an hour’s drive from town, so was going to occupy the better part of the day.  There was a lot of work involved, and naturally that meant said friend and I slacked off as much as we could, but we got the jobs assigned to us done (mercifully my friend’s father handled the outhouse chores – that’s right, no plumbing).

Probably not as bad an outhouse experience as this guy, but still.

Probably not as bad an outhouse experience as this guy, but still.

Anyway we were winding things down, but had another hour or so before we were heading back home.  My friend’s mother suggested I stretch out on the hammock.  “It’s the most comfortable one you’ll ever experience,” she promised.  I figured “why not” and climbed into the hammock.  It was essentially a canvas bag strung between two trees, not one of the more common netted ones.  I laid back and pulled the canvas over so I was totally cocooned and I lay there, listening to the breeze waft through the trees, hearing them creak.  I could hear the water lapping at the shore.  In the distance I heard a motorboat on the lake.  And for a moment this incredible sense of well-being overcame me.

Someone nudged the hammock and I pulled back the canvas to see my friend staring down at me.  “Time to go” he said.

“I thought I had an hour”, I replied.

“Dude, you’ve been in there an hour.”  I checked my watch, and saw he was right.  Thing is it felt like a minute.  I know I didn’t fall asleep – I was awake the entire time.  But somehow I didn’t notice it had been an hour.  Had I been alone there I could have stayed in that hammock until dark.

Or until this guy showed up.

Or until this guy showed up.

I didn’t say much on the ride home, and after I was dropped off, didn’t say much to my parents either.  Instead I sequestered myself in my room, trying to capture that moment of perfection, and realizing I never would again.

The next time was in summer of 1992 and involved basketball.  For some reason a friend and I were playing a little 1-on-1 in his driveway, the hoop and net mounted (as is the suburban fashion) above the garage.  A couple more friends dropped by, and we were 2 on 2.  Then, for some reason we decided to take this show to the closest school playground for more room to roam (not to mention two opposing hoops).  We did, played basketball for what must have been  hours, until the sun set and we lost the light.  We parted ways after that, on the short term, but a few months later in the big sense when we all went away to college. Whether true or just an invention post-script, it could have been the last time we were all together at the same place.

This was more our speed.

This was more our speed.

What stands out about the basketball story; none of us played basketball with any regularity.  We weren’t on the school team, and, point of fact, were an un-athletic, uncoordinated bunch.  We probably looked like idiots out there, but didn’t notice or care.  Shooting hoops was something we never ever did, before, and never did after, yet for some reason on this day it seemed the thing to do.

The next period jumps us ahead 18 years.  I’ve just relocated to NYC and am mired in boxes and unpacking. But I’ve made it through the week and am looking for some downtime.

I head downtown. I park myself at a coffee hop and read the paper, looking for something to do, and decide I’m going to go to a movie.  What’s playing?  What’s new?

Well, Iron Man just opened … but I already promised the fiancee I’d take her that weekend.  What else — oh, look, Speed Racer opens today.

This is actually the only coherent shot in the movie.

This is actually the only coherent shot in the movie.

Yeah, Speed Racer.  The Wachowski’s epic flop of a film.  But at this point it’s just opened, and is playing in IMAX, and I have a few hours before the first showing.  So I figure, “why not” and slowly make my way down towards the theater, looking for something — anything — to kill time with.  So hours to go before the movie, I walk Broadway, just enjoying the day, when I walk past a comic book shop.  There’s a sign in the window and it stops me in my tracks.  Today (and only today) they’re selling all graphic novels 50% off.

And since it’s bee a good long while since I bought a GN, I figure, why not, and head on in. A half-hour and eighty dollars later I exited the store, toting the first volumes in The Walking Dead, Y: The Last Man, and Northlanders sagas –and inadvertently opened the door that would eventually lead me to create Mixtape.  Of course at this point I didn’t know the significance of the moment, but looking back now I ask myself What If I had walked past and there hadn’t been the sale on. Would I have gone in?  Would Mixtape have been born? The mind reels.

Because the TV show is insanely popular and I'm trying to gin up hits.

Because the TV show is insanely popular and I’m trying to gin up hits.

Eventually my wandering took me through the downtown core to the theater showing, yes, Speed Racer, a film which is akin to someone smacking you in the face with a bag of Skittles over and over again.  But my mind was so centered it might as well have been the greatest movie ever made.

And in all honesty, Speed Racer is much better than people give it credit for.  It’s overlong, and doesn’t know what movie it wants ot be half the time, but it possesses an emotional center that most movies of its type lack. I watched it again recently and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, and how much stronger a film it feels like in comparison to the other big movies of 2008, namely Indy 4, The Dark Knight, and, yes, Iron Man.  Actually, I think all of the Wachowski’s films age better than people give credit for — this from the guy who liked ALL of the Matrix trilogy (and ditto Cloud Atlas).

It's true. I did like it.

It’s true. I did like it.

There have been days like those three since, but those three are the ones that jump out at me most.  We’re coming up on five years since that Speed Racer day, and it feels like it could have happened decades ago.  And at some point, it will have been decades, like the previous memories are.

But for now it’s just a moment, one of many where for just that moment, everything seemed right in the world.

[NOTE: Not that anybody commented on this post anyway, but the spambots love it, hence comments being closed.]