Reminiscing

Why is it we really get into reminiscing just when we don’t have the mental capacity to do that successfully? I know, I know -- when you’re young, and have wonderful mental acuity, you don’t look backward; there’s too much that lays ahead to ponder what was. And, when you’re young, the next step is always so cool and to be envied that you don’t want to waste a moment on some lame memory that happened when you were, let’s say, a toddler. If you’re 8, you want to be 10. Ahh, double digits! When you’re 10, you crave 13. To be a teenager at last! When you’re 14, you can’t sit still until you’re 16 so you can drive. Freedom! And, when you’re 19, you ache for 21 so the whole deal can be legal and you can be treated as a full-scale, honest-to-God adult, just like your parents and teachers. Everything is forward looking.

But, when you get into your 50s or 60s, I guess your head is so crammed with memories, you just have to have an outlet for them before our heads explode from over-capacity. And so we reminisce. Or, at least we attempt to. This past weekend, our good friends Randy and Cathy came for a visit. Our relationship goes back decades, and for Lily, back to college days. We were married within a year of each other, shared summer beach houses for years, raised each other’s kids, skied together, traveled together, partied together. You get the picture: we share a lot of history.

So, there we were, sitting around the dinner table the other night calling up days of yore, drinking way too much wine. We were trying to recall a charades game we all enjoyed, played some time in the last millennium. Ancient history to all but those steeped in Greek history. It was a contest between the girls and the guys, or, as we entitled them, the Powder Puffs and the Bulls. No stereotyping back in those days, oh no. What we couldn’t get straight -- in 2010 -- was exactly who was there. Was Syl there? Randy thought so. Was Maggie there? She had to be, right (even if her name back then was Marge)? Did the Powder Puffs prevail? None of these matters could be resolved. In a desperate effort at resolving the vagaries of history, Lily reached through the cobwebs of her distant past and went to what had to be an unassailable source: some old poetry she had written commemorating the famed pantomime event. I mean, what better documentation of history than old poetry. So what if it wasn’t Homer, Sappho, or Aeschylus. Sadly, all we got from that effort was that there was apparently some guy named Allen at that charades event, and none of us could even remotely think who that might be. I called Maggie, one of the most intelligent people we know on planet earth, and all she had to say was “what charades party?“ Not helpful, but why should she be any different? We thought she was a participant that long ago night, but our memories are -- how you say -- not to be trusted.

And, so the evening wore on. We tried to reconstruct which beach houses we rented in chronological order. Consensus was as ascertainable as an elusive ghost on some far away mountain. Our minds were mush, and while some of that could no doubt be attributed to the wine, equal parts of the blame rested with our over-used and way too cluttered heads. I guess this is why history is written and why extemporaneous accounts are so valued. As the event, whatever it is, vanishes in the rear view mirror, so does our ability to re-create what happened. Is it fun to try to reconstruct personal history? Absolutely. Is it productive? Not a chance in hell.

And, why should we expect it to be any other way? We can’t remember what we had for lunch just yesterday. Nor can we recall who that actor was in that movie (whose title is also a bit too elusive at this particular moment). You know the one. It's on the tip of my tongue! It took place in Vienna. Or was it Rome? And, the star went on to play a major role in that spy movie. You know, the really popular one that led to a TV series that starred the guy who used to be bit player in that old James Garner flick. And, on and on it goes.

It’s all there. In our minds. Somewhere. Probably not far from where we left the car keys or glasses, wherever that might be.