Several years ago, I reconnected with several of my high school classmates at my 25th year class reunion. At the social gatherings, the high school clicks reformed. As I looked around at the classmates, there were those I knew in high school as acquaintances but didn’t socialize with them even though our graduating class only had 99 graduates. One of my girls friends, Linda, reminded me of the time she punched one of the guys in the nose and broke his glasses. He’d snapped her bra while we were getting books out of our lockers. Instinctively, she turned with a clenched fist and let him have it square between the eyes. She said, “You were standing right there and told him it served him right”.
I didn’t remembered.
Later that reunion week, I was resting in my old bedroom downstairs in the dark basement one afternoon, and decided I’d try to remember that incident. I closed my eyes and tried to put myself back in that exact spot and in that very moment. Several of my old girl friends and I had gone to the high school that week and wandered around the halls locating our various classrooms and the lockers we had each year so I knew which lockers Linda and I had been at when this particular incident happened.
Twenty-five years in mind-travel isn’t such a long time and it can be impossible. In this case, I was actually able to replay the entire incident even to the point of vaguely remembering what she and I were wearing. Since then, I have mind-traveled back to various points in time. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how long ago the visitation is. A moment in time comes back to me. Other times, no matter how hard I try, I can’t reconnect. Of course, being in my eighties now, remembering what I had for breakfast yesterday can be a challenge.
When Scott and I first got together, I would ask him about his childhood, mainly to get to know him better. He often times said he didn’t remember much, that I should ask his sister. She would remember. Since then, as we travel through these later years in our life together, he remembers more and shares those past experiences. He is beginning to experience how enlightening this mind-travel can be.
Deb’s Blog 