For my friends, Kearney High School, class of 1973

Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.                                                                                                                       Guy de Maupasssant

My granddaughter, Gracyn, has been determined to learn how to do a cartwheel. Standing in her yard this summer, she asked, “Can you do a cartwheel, Grandma? Maybe it would help me if I could see how you do it.”

Can I do a cartwheel? You are talking to a former Kearney High School cheerleader! How about I cartwheel into a stag jump and then down into the splits? This is what I thought. For one brief moment, that is, until I remembered that my 63-year-old muscles would hardly move and stretch in this way and that I truly value what muscle tone (or lack thereof) I still have. Before I could respond, I turned to see that, blessedly, her dad was demonstrating in the corner of the yard.

As he cartwheeled across the grass, his thirty-something muscles limbered and toned, I looked on and remembered. The memory of turning the world on its head, of leaping into the air, bending and stretching myself into shapes and positions that defied gravity was momentarily intoxicating. Oh, but to be a cheerleader again on a crisp autumn night with a pep band and a stadium-full of fans before me! Oh, but to leap into that Friday night splendor, suspended for a few glorious moments above the earth! As Guy de Maupassant writes, my memory of these nights gives back life to those who no longer exist. As much as I hate to admit it–to my granddaughter and myself–the cartwheeling, jumping, cheering me no longer exists. Except in my memories, which sustain me more and more with each passing year.

Recently, I attended my 45th high school reunion in Kearney, Nebraska. As a part of the weekend’s events, I had the opportunity to tour the newly built Kearney High School with a group of my former classmates. As we walked from one part of the campus to the next, I could see our high school selves, standing around our lockers in the concourse. I could remember changing into my gym outfit (in all its royal blue polyester splendor) as Gloria Mitchell urged us to hurry up before the boys’ PE teacher, Mr. Greeno, burst into the locker room as he did most days. I could remember bending over my copy of Lord of the Flies in an English classroom decorated with styrofoam student projects and lined with shelves of well-worn novels. I could remember pouring over yearbook layouts, the table a collage of photos and copy, text books and promise. Yes, I could remember it all. Too well, in fact.

These memories came to the surface quickly and solidly, as if I were panning for the gold nuggets of them, swirling thousands of events as I held the pan from which the sediment of my life sifted back into the dark waters, leaving the shinier moments in my hands. It is like this sometimes. There are moments when sights or sounds, smells or feelings call forth the good stuff. And, in obedience, it radiates just as brightly as it did in your past. Perhaps more brightly, having stood the test of time.

In these moments, you truly believe that you would like to return to childhood or adolescence or young adulthood. You can imagine a younger, but wiser self who navigates more successfully through trials and challenges, who relishes celebrations with mature appreciation, and who is keenly aware that all of this will pass too quickly. With hindsight, memories may take on lives that are new-and-improved versions of the real deal.

In his novel, Light in August, William Faulkner writes:

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. 

Sometimes in those moments when we get into bed at night, we dress up our memories. Tied and tuxedoed, we march them forward in splendid stories of love and conquest, stories that carry us joyously into sleep. In these stories, we are never wallflowers. We never fade into the ordinary din. We flourish, we triumph, we transform the kernel of memory into epic tales. This is the memory that believes before knowing remembers, that believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. This is the memory that sustains us as the stars of feature films that are, in reality, universally ordinary.

And the painful memories, the cringe-worthy, long-living ones? Even these eventually become paler cousins to the real events that lacerated or rubbed the skins of our lives into agonizing blisters. Time may not heal all, but it can, by degrees, dull.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was, writes novelist Toni Morrison. Like water, I find that–in many ways–I am forever trying to get back to where I was. Not the fifteen-year-old with braces who was wracked by insecurity and self-doubt. Not her, never her! But the girl who leapt into the Friday night lights, hands flung to the sky, and promise at her fingertips. I’d like to get back to her when I feel age creeping into my bones and my dreams.

Following the Platte River back to my home and to my KHS classmates brought me back to where I was. And until we meet again, these are the perfect memories I will carry into my days and my dreams.