‘Everything passes, but nothing entirely goes away.’ – Jenny Diski, English author
It’s usually birthdays – those annual marker stones in our lives – which provide natural opportunities to revisit the past. Almost inevitably, these regular celebrations give us pause for thought as we mark the passing of another chapter of our lives. They allow us a natural moment, amidst the cards, presents and cake, to cast our minds backwards and dwell, at least for a few moments, on the preceding years: a mix perhaps, of pleasure or regret.
The further we go, the more we see as we turn to see how far we’ve come. Our memories rise like mental kaleidoscopes: dancing collages of people, places and events; strategically placed highlights, forming unique patterns through our years.
How many of us, I wonder, ever get to return to any of them, apart from in our reveries?
Not so long ago, I had the chance to see the inside of a residential house which used to be my infant school. In those days, it had its own school field where now another house stands, along with a hall and extra classroom extension, also no longer there. The kind home owner allowed my sister and I to see beyond her beautiful interior and recall the arrangement of old classrooms, the headmistress’s room and the kitchen where we queued for our school dinners. To our adult eyes, it seemed to have shrunk, but we had no problem puling the curtain of time to see our past there.
We were transported back through more than fifty years, and saw again the places where we sat, the position of the old cupboards and bookcases; even the familiar curve and colours of the original stained glass panels preserved in fanlight windows.
We left uplifted, and with an immense sense of privilege both for what had been and what we remembered as those dormant memories sprang vividly to life once more.
Since my mother’s church now meets in my old primary school, I’ve been able to revisit that season too. I’ve peeked into some of my old form rooms, recalled where I sat and the teachers I had there. Some rooms – amazingly – still have the old school sinks and formica surrounds that were so familiar to me when we mixed powder paints there in the 1970s, and splurged them on huge pieces of sugar paper stored in the stock cupboard. We produced multiple illustrated pieces of creative writing which adorned the classroom walls and garnered coveted house points.
It’s one thing to revisit places – after all, they don’t actually go anywhere, even if they may have been altered, or even (heaven help us) bulldozed, in the intervening years – it’s quite another to cross paths with people from many years ago. That very seldom happens.
It was, therefore, a slightly surreal experience for me to meet someone last weekend who I haven’t seen for, literally, forty years. Somewhere between Derby and Chesterfield, I arrived at the Christian Schools Trust conference armed with piles of books and paraphernalia for an exhibition, to discover a familiar name from yesteryear on the sign-in list, and felt a frisson of trepidation.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, a lot can happen in forty years. Back when we met – myself at the age of eighteen – I was pretty naive, not very confident and with very little clue about where my life was going. He, on the other hand, was already an english and drama teacher in the Midlands with a much clearer picture of his path ahead. It was the summer of my A’level results.
Almost inevitably, our fledgling relationship didn’t make it until Christmas. Our paths diverged and we went our separate ways, hearing dribs and drabs of news from time to time through third parties.
While I have no regrets about the subsequent years – where they have taken me, the amazing man I married and the fantastic children I am privileged to have – I admit to a curiosity tinged by apprehension when I saw that name. In my mind, he would not be happy to see me again, and I recollected somewhat sheepishly that I may not have been entirely kind to him.
It could have been an awkward reunion but it was not at all. Once he’d recognised me (a married name can throw anyone), I was somewhat surprised to be greeted warmly.
It was a relaxed and good-humoured reunion. We sat and talked non-stop for almost four hours, ignoring fellow diners and missing the scheduled evening meeting as we allowed a metaphorical DeLorean to transport us back to 1983. Both our lives have been, and continue to be full; they’ve included marriage, children, travel, drama, heart-break and adventure, but there was a freshness in sharing memories that was healing and funny and healthy.
‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ asked my husband. He reasoned that if I had ever been interested in someone, they must have been at least ‘a half decent human being’! Fair enough.
Unless you are a frequenter of school reunions, there are probably very few people in your life now who you spent any meaningful time with forty years ago.
I am a great believer in the power and richness of shared memories; they are, after all, one of the main ingredients of positive family life. My sisters and I spent a fair proportion of our time walking around the Isle of Wight last summer recalling the many and various highlights of our childhood together. I have a couple of school friends from forty-six and fifty-one years ago respectively, with whom, from time to time, I share glimpses of happy days then and enjoy much laughter now.
Should you be equally fortunate, then you are blessed. I don’t want to wallow in nostalgia or airbrush my personal history, but I am truly grateful for so many treasured memories and thankful for the opportunity to share them with those I’ve met on the way. Even if I haven’t seen them for forty years.
Supplementary image: Mick Haupt & Harli Marten; both Unsplash
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