"What if I fall?” I asked my dad.
"I have a hold of you; I won’t let you fall.”
"But I could still trip…”
"I will catch you if you do. Trust me.”
Assured, I tipped back my head and slowly we moved forward. At first my thoughts were on my feet, trying to anticipate the next step. But my father’s firm grip and reassuring voice compelled me forward. I discovered my feet had a kind of body memory for this familiar plot of walkway. Two steps and then up, two steps and then up—just like peddling the bike, only slower.
"What do you notice?” he asked me.
"That I haven’t fallen?”
He laughed. "No, you haven’t fallen, and you won’t. Don’t worry. What else do you notice? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?”
I felt the wind, a soft, late summer breeze. It had the slight scent of salt from Long Island Sound, not that far away. I heard it rustle the leaves overhead, a lovely swooshing sound that filled my ears. There were birds calling and fluttering in the branches. There must have been the zing of an occasional car going by, but it did not register, or I no longer remember. What I do remember was that the dappled sunlight flickering through the leaves created a dance of light and dark upon my closed eyelids. Brilliant flashes and deep darkness back and forth. Colors that appeared and disappeared. It was a movie screen inside my head! I giggled slightly.
"What’s so funny?” Dad asked.
"The light is tickling my eyes!” I felt Dad’s hand squeeze mine.
A perfect memory. I have only to close my eyes to recreate it. This morning, I sat on my deck in the early Arkansas morning with songbirds at the feeder and brilliant sunshine glancing off deep green leaves. I tilted back my head just enough to feel the familiar warmth of sun and cool of breeze upon my upturned face. Ah, just like when, I think, and I close my eyes to recall.
Sometimes I go a bit further...
One perfect memory shared across generations and distance. Infused with beauty, filling the senses, peopled with dear, familiar faces, this one perfect memory, ever available, is layered and folded like kneaded dough. Like dough, it is a living thing. Like bread, it nourishes and fills me—an earthly eucharist.
If we reach into the grab bag of life, who is to say what childhood experiences will take on that essence of perfect memory. We all have these moments, frozen in time, residing within us. They are mostly simple acts, long forgotten by the giver, but enduring and true to what was and somehow still is. They evoke so much more than one moment can hold; they need to spill into a lifetime. We draw from them like a living water.
Parents strive to create such memories for their children. We travel to Disneyland, stay up to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July, buy giant hot dogs at the stadium, stash piles of presents under the Christmas tree. All of those moments matter--every single one of them. But we cannot predict what moments a child will remember any more than we can predict the next words out of a four-year-old's mouth. We are left, like children ourselves, to wonder at the capacity of life to surprise and to marvel that so much of it lies beyond our own doing.
To visit the treasure trove of memory, to visit it with those we love, that is of our doing. May this summer be a time of making memories for you. May it be a time of revisiting memories. May you have loved ones surround you in the making and in the remembering--loved ones from now and from way back when. There is no degree of difference in how dear or real they are.
