Are you ever conscious of a memory in the making? Yesterday, on a whim, we went to see the Nationals play. (The Orioles were out of town.) Decent weather, small crowd, stellar game. The Nats’ pitcher, Ortiz, was carrying a no-hitter into the ninth — and he hit a homerun in the bottom of the eighth. He gave up the no-hitter on the second pitch of the ninth, but this may be the closest I ever get to seeing a no-hitter and, given the rarity with which I attend games in the National League, the only time I see a pitcher hit a homerun.
But I’ll also remember the two ushers standig on the dug-out, leading the crowd in “Sweet Caroline” during a Cardinals’ pitching change in the eighth.
Anyone else have a day like that, one that you experience in full, all the while knowing it’s one for your personal record books?
I can think of a couple of them. One was several years ago when I was spirited away to Napa Valley for a romantic tryst. Sitting on the deck of our little cabin, looking at the grapes and just revelling in our too short time together was something I knew would always be a part of me.
Just a couple of years ago I was in northern Minnesota with a girl friend and we were driving back to our hotel after dinner. I looked out the window and commented on the lightening, she looked, pulled the car over to the edge of the road and said, “it’s not lightening, it’s the Northern Lights”. It was an amazing display of color and light and as we were watching, a shooting star went across the sky. I knew then it would be something to remember.
When I was younger, (middle school age), my best friend and I were lucky enough to do some “traveling” with the CYO org. from our church. There were several trips to NY City for the Worlds Fair and then to Coney Island and just general NYC sites.
We started doing a thing called “make a memory”. I remember standing at the top of the Empire State Bldg. and saying “OK let’s make a memory”. We would stand for a few seconds silently, taking in the site, sound and smell of that particular moment.
I have done that many times in my life, driving along a road in Hawaii, I can still remember the song playing on the radio at the time. When my children were born, the first time I held them, I can still remember their faces and what I was saying to them.
There are certainly times in your life, when you are in a moment that you know you will want to relive over again, and I think it can be done, if you are consciously making a memory.
The day I thought of when asked about this is the weekend my husband and I went away for the weekend that I was ovulating with the intent to make a baby. We went to a bed and breakfast in Dana Point Ca. and it was beautiful. Our room overlooked the ocean from a cliff. We had wine on arrival and took a bicycle ride. There was more wine and later when we got ready to do “it”, the Viagra that he took for fun had the opposite effect. We were cracking up and ended up at some punk rock surfer bar eating dinner because by that time all the restaurants had closed. I’m not sure when, but apparently the weekend was a success after all because we are expecting a son in January.
The big events ones are easy to remember.
I love the little ones: Several years ago I was visiting a friend of mine. We had done quite a bit of hellraising together, but now he had a wife and new baby.
We were standing outside his door saying goodbye after a night of reminiscing. His four month old daughter was on his shoulder, going in and out of sleep. As we stood there in the warm desert air, and talked about how wild it was that he was a father now, and how we were finally growing up, a train whistle sounded in the distance. His daughter raised her head and looked off toward the sound. Then she turned to us and smiled.
We both reacted to the moment, and my friend literally said, “We’re living a memory right now.”
He was right.
During a couple of visits to Paris, I can remember thinking, “this is the perfect day. I must remember this because it will cheer me up when times are bad”. It wasn’t so much that I was doing anything special, it was that I was in Paris. And I was right, those memories have helped.
I also have a baseball memory. On the first anniversary of 9/11, some cousins were visiting San Francisco from Ireland, and we took them to their first baseball game. As I watched them – wearing their new Giants caps, waving their little American flags, and yelling “yay Cousin Barry!” (Bonds is an Irish name, which by their definition made him a relative) – I remember being aware that I was enjoying a moment that would become a really great memory.
A memory that stands out occured around 1979. I was in college and working in a job where each week I had to drive to a number of properties throughout Baltimore County. I usually did this on the weekends. One Saturday afternoon in the autumn I left my home in southeast Baltimore County to drive to a site in the Cromwell Valley. That is a lovely wooded area. From the time I left my home until the time I reached the property (about 30 minutes) it poured rain. I tromped around the property and did my job, getting thoroughly soaked by the driving fall rain. I then started to drive away. Since the property was down in a small valley, I had to drive up a steep hill to leave the area. Just as I crested the hill I had a beautiful view of the surrounding valley, the rain stopped, the clouds broke, the sun shone, and “Mr. Blue Sky” by ELO started playing on the radio. I immediately pulled over to look at the fluffy clouds mixed with the deep blue sky and enjoy the music of Jeff Lynn and the guys.
That moment was as close to perfection as I think I will ever be.
Among many choices, a baseball memory:
Earlier this summer, my father-in-law took me and my ten-year-old son, Jacob, to a Mets game. When we got there we found that we were seated about ten rows back from the field, and a little to the left of home plate. Best seats I’ve ever had.
We arrived two hours before gametime, so we could watch batting practice. From that close perspective, we got to see all the players and coaches and announcers joking around. It was a wonderful glimpse of a world that usually seems very far away.
Jacob tried to go down to the railing, and was told that he was only allowed to do that behind the dugout. “I’m going over to the Mets’ dugout,” he told us, and headed to the first-base side. The crowd behind the dugout was already about eight people deep, but after a few minutes we saw him standing right in the front, surrounded by big people, but holding his own.
For the next hour he stood there. The players came and went, and whenever one stopped fans would wave programs and roll balls over the rim of the dugout to be signed. Jacob only had his glove (I’d told him he could get that signed), and we could see him waving it, as if he was thinking of tossing it, but couldn’t bring himself to.
You so rarely see your children at a distance. Jacob looked so small! I felt like going over and forcing someone to notice him, but this was his gig. Sometimes you just have to let go.
And he was sticking to it.
The last person to head to the dugout was David Wright, Jacob’s favorite player. Someone threw a jersey at him, which he signed. Some balls. A homemade poster. We could see Jacob talking, waving his glove…and then he threw it! And Wright caught it and signed it!
You should have seen Jacob’s face as he made his way back to us. It was alight with pleasure. “I told David Wright that he was on your rotisserie team, except you traded him!” he told me, clutching the glove to his chest.
The game that followed was unimportant: a lifetime memory had been made for both of us. And yes, I knew it would be from the start.
Only one problem. That glove is going up on Jacob’s wall. Now I have to buy him a new one.
Actually this happened to me yesterday. I had a first date in Ann Arbor and the first couple of hours were your basic first date, awkward conversation, multiple bathroom breaks, etc. But as the afternoon wore on, and the drinks continued to flow, we both relaxed more and the conversation started to fly just like in a Woody Allen movie. When we were done at the restaurant we were both very buzzed and we ended up running all through campus, holding hands in the rain, and at one point I pulled her to me and kissed her. Right then I knew I was in the middle of a movie memory.
I’ve not posted here before, but I have enjoyed the memories of others for a while now. When I read this entry, the immediate conscious-memory-in-the-making I recalled occurred on an October evening in 1972 when I was nearly 13 years old. I was spending the night with a friend, anticipating hours of joking, popcorn and junior high gossip, and we had first gone to the stable where she boarded her horse. I had watched her and some neighbor girls of her’s ride their horses and it was nearly time to go. My friend and the other girls had put me in charge of “guarding” one horse in a small, gateless pen while they put up the other horses. That horse took one look at all 85 pounds of me and charged, knocking me down, but thankfully it only grazed one of my legs as it ran over me. Flustered, I brushed myself off and leaned against the barn door entrance as the girls finished with the beasts (“You beast, you beast!”). There was enough waning light from sunset to cast the northeastern Tennessee hills surrounding the stable in a golden glow. A full moon had already risen above those hills, and the sky meeting them was a color of blue I’ve always had trouble describing. If a blueberry could have a pulse, maybe that’s what it would look like. Dusky, yet vibrant. The amiable chatter of the girls behind me became like the sound of so many crickets as I felt myself drawn more into the changing scenery. My eyes flitted from hills to sky to moon to hills. So much to take in! Each element made the others stand out that much more. While my nose and cheeks and toes began absorbing the chill, my hands stayed toasty inside my borrowed school jacket. A faint smell of woodsmoke added to the transformation of day into night and the thought went through my head: “I will always remember this moment.” And I have.