A Trip Down Memory Lane

If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go? Would you hop in a Winnebago and motor all over? Would you fly as far from here as money and miles would take you? Would you choose a specific place, or would you choose a specific time? Would you propel yourself into a future scenario or revisit a treasured memory?

I can't even give a quick answer to the "where would you go right now" question. I'd probably say Iowa first because it's at the top of my list of states I haven't seen yet, and it's been screaming my name for months – actually years, but especially loud since March. Or maybe I'd drive to Bisbee because it's my favorite place and it's further away, so it makes for more time on the road. Or perhaps I'd head to Yellowstone because I didn't get nearly enough of it last summer. Or Yosemite because it's a real challenge, and it's the next major park on my list of next-to-sees.

But since venturing way out isn't really an option right now, I get lost in memories of trips and experiences past instead. I love reliving memories, though it's difficult, if not impossible to recreate them fully, even if you go back to where they occurred, even if all the same characters are present and you're wearing the same shirt and shoes. I find that they're more easily relived through daydreams and photographs, telling stories out loud and in writing. I love reliving details of experiences. Ones that remind me of who I am and all the colorful pieces that make me me.

I love when planes land, and I hate when they takeoff. When I'm up in the air and awake, unless I'm laying flat in Delta One, I love when the wheels slam the ground. Again, unless I'm curled up like a happy little hermit crab in Delta One, flying makes me sick and scared, and I force myself to do it anyway. So when we thankfully touch down on dry land, it means the air journey is over, and my road journey can begin. I love barreling through the aisle of the plane, then staggering down the corridor to the gate, wiping sleepers from my eyes, hustling as though I've got my land legs back even though I just woke up groggy from the Dramamine I downed earlier.

But I love pushing myself through that process...making my way to the rental car center as quickly as possible, carrying way more than a human of my stature should ever carry––and that's on the outbound flight…the inbound flight is naturally even worse 'cause I seem to accumulate more stuff wherever I go. I award bonus points to any airport that doesn't make me take an additional mode of transportation from plane to car. I'm elated if I don't have to take a bus or tram to retrieve my rental beast, but even if I do, it's fun to reminisce later on how I traveled by plane, tram, bus, and car all in one day.

I love reliving memories of ambitious solo trips past where I'd wake up in a different city every morning and occasionally not know where I was the moment I woke up. I love that feeling. After zigzagging through time zones, crossing multiple state lines in a day, the rolling over to whack my alarm, cracking one eyelid open to scan my surroundings and thinking, "Nebraska? No, Kansas. No, wait, Nebraska. Yeah, Nebraska." I love road-tripping west because I gain time as I technically travel back in time. I love when it's 2 o'clock twice in one day. I love how I've redefined the idea of vacation for myself…while the idea of a chill, resort getaway honestly sounds lovely – I'm not sure I could ever design that kind of trip for myself. I run myself ragged when I travel. I need a vacation after my vacations. Exhausting myself all day, staying up late, then waking up semi-early to do it all over again in a new place the next day…yeah…that's livin'.

I love thinking back on my days in Moab with my mom last November, even though they were semi-poisoned by foodborne illness. Since the sickness has long subsided, humor has been peppered into those memories, and the glory of our surroundings and the wonder of our experience reign supreme in my memory bank. Exploring our prized public lands, becoming junior park rangers, doing diner for dinner, then binging Schitt's Creek all night long...we had a lot of laughs and a lot of oohs and aahs on that trip. And a lot of truck stop restroom dashes.

I love remembering the tour of Arizona I took my dad on...the things we discovered: Dinosaur Tracks up near Tuba City, the things we ate: Navajo food in Cameron, the things we drank: mini Hog Wash bottled beverages in the Grand Canyon. And perhaps most memorable of all was how he fell in love with the town that captured my heart years before, my beloved Bisbee. I like to recall all the details. The hotels, the car we rented, the route we drove, the way he reacted when he experienced all of these places for the first time.

I love reliving my memories along the Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada and remembering how I'd never felt more blissfully alone or alive in my life. I loved the alien signage and rogue cattle I passed along the way, how the sand swept the longest straightest road I'd ever set wheels on, and how as I drove closer to the jagged-peaked mountains, they appeared to be pushing further away. I can remember wondering if I was having some kind of road-weary or alien-influenced optical illusion and giggling over the thought that was crossing my mind.

I love telling the story of how my grandma and I used to take cat naps together on the couch after kindergarten half days. She'd pick me up off the school bus, and in my mind, it was always a bright, sunshiny, spring day. I even remember my very first bus driver's name: Lee. He had a long, brown ponytail, a soft voice, and a warm smile. He was memorably kind. He let us kids pick a piece of Bubble Yum at the end of each trip. But once I was home and all snacked up, my grandma and I would watch shows like Flipper and Lassie or Bob Ross's painting tutorials, and then we were asleep before we knew it.

I love thinking of my grandma's much-more-dominant, much-less-mellow self that came out a lot when we'd go shopping together. She'd waltz us into JCPenny to exchange a pair of pants without ever reaching a register. We weren't going to wait in line for a simple small to medium switch out, so she plucked the tags off the new pants, hung the old pants on the hanger in the most efficient manner possible, and then we were off to haggle with grocers across the street. If Eggo waffles were marked on sale at $2.29 and they were ringing up $2.34, we were holding up lines and causing megaphone manager calls to rectify the five-cent disparity. I still admire her unapologetic perseverance. My grandma will be 98 this October, and if walking were easier for her, she'd still be pulling the same stunts over nickel-and-dime discrepancies.

I love when my people remember things that I've done, but forgotten. Like how my friend Katie loves to remind me of my appropriate outburst in our ninth grade art class. We were sitting in groups of four or five and sketching an object that sat in front of us on our rectangular, shared tables. Katie and I were next to each other, of course, and as our teacher came around checking on everyone's progress, she stopped behind Katie and asked, "Why are you shading like that? Pencil strokes in all different directions? That's not how you shade." And though I have no recollection of doing this, Katie will tell you that I instantly answered for her, full of outrage and protectiveness over her feelings and her work, "Actually, she can shade any way she wants. It's art, Mrs. Gessin. There's no right or wrong way to do it. If she wants to sketch in different directions, she can do it." Although the way Katie tells the story, there was much more no-effing-way in my voice. It's a happy memory I borrow from my dear friend's bank.

And speaking of standing up for what I believe in, another fun one to recall is the very first riot I ever staged at the age of…oh, say, nine or 10. Ok, maybe it wasn't a full-fledged riot, but it definitely qualified for amateur protest material. Back in elementary school, we had one particularly stern hall monitor. Her name was Ms. Levy, and she had a permanent chip on her shoulder and a general distaste for children. She wore large, tinted glasses, waist-length, straight, black hair and dressed in all black all the time. She was a little witchy, a little 60s, and no fun at all. She almost never wore a smile, and her favorite thing to say to her friendlier hall monitor companion was, "I could wait here all day. It's your time you're wasting, not mine. I could just wait here all day long." This was her go-to line anytime we kids weren't in the most orderly, single-file line on our walk from lunch to recess. She'd stop us on the sidewalk and wait for us to be silent, still, and single-file. And her condescending words made our little bodies want to do anything but stand frozen in silence.

One day at recess, a bunch of us kids were being kids, kicking a soccer ball around, and accidentally someone kicked the ball a little out of control, and it kind of sort of maybe hit Ms. Levy right in the face. She screamed and shouted and stole the ball from us…claimed there'd be no more soccer at recess PERIOD and that she'd be informing Principal Lobe of our crime once recess was over. And to say the least, this just didn't sit well with me or my fellow fugitives.

"You're gonna tell Mr. Lobe?! How 'bout WE tell Mr. Lobe! Because we demand justice!" This is the kind of language I used to round up the troops and inflict my inner outrage on them so they'd realize how enraged they truly were. "Are we going to stand for this?! First, she takes away our free time if we don't walk in a perfectly straight line, and now this?! I won't stand for it!" Yeah, I riled them up good. With hearts racing and steam spewing out of our elementary ears, I was determined to beat Ms. Levy to the principal's office, so I marched is as quickly as our little legs would allow. We powerwalked into the big man's office immediately after recess…I think we started with eight or nine of us, but by the time we reached his desk, I had maybe three or four quivering soldiers behind me. And I laid the whole scenario out to our pal-to-the-kids principal, Buddy Lobe, in a she-must-be-stopped speech. He wore a warm smile through my entire rant––really let me vent it all out. He was team kids, his smile told me we wouldn't get in trouble for this, and then so did his words. He assured us that soccer would not be banned and that he'd have a chat with Ms. Levy, and it was as though I'd just won The World Cup for my team. Looking back, maybe he saw a young leader in me and appreciated the stick-to-itiveness of youth on a mission. (Perhaps learned through my tenacious mother and grandmother.) We weren't trouble-making kids, and he probably knew that for us to come into his office, we must've really felt like we were on dire straits. He was a good man, that Buddy Lobe.

As fun as it is to remember our cherished memories, sometimes ones we don't care to remember creep in. But why? I'd argue on behalf of one of my favorite meditation teachers, that we're not in control of what thought pops up next. We have no more control over the next thought that arises than we do of the next sound we hear or when our phones will buzz next. It's not to say we're powerless – we still choose whether to answer the phone, put on headphones so the outside sounds don't bother us, and most importantly of all, we decide which thoughts we engage with and which we let dissipate. I can't control a bee flying into my space, but I do decide whether I try to kill it, let it be, or let it sting me. 

You had to know I was going to leave you with a little lesson for digestion. 😉  I hope you find it as empowering as I do, and I hope that if you do, you apply the mentality more frequently than your daily lotion.

Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane.