A Scrim of Memory; A Meditation on Reunions
There are a host of freighted words in our wonderful language. They include so many connotations in addition to simple denotations that they almost demand dissertations.
Think about reunion. Nowadays when the fashion is to press children into adult molds earlier and earlier in their lives, I've heard of kindergarten reunions. My own children were invited to eighth grade ones, and it goes on from there. I went to my own 40th high school reunion and my 50th college one. It was that one that made me swear off that kind of gathering.
The first problem is that we know (if we're honest about it) that we're in for surprises both pleasant and not so much. It seems these gatherings force an automatic exercise in comparisons. Every attendee has to face unstated competition as intense as that for college acceptance; it's just based on different criteria. How have I aged in appearance compared with my classmates? Can I match the average for marriage, number of children, implied income, social status, renown? Who will recall my mortifying gaffes and/or minor triumphs? Will old alliances survive? How about old enmities? Above all, what if no one remembers me?
I have discovered it's really no fun. I have a college roommate who has not (to my knowledge) missed a single reunion in 60 years. She has a PhD., is much published, an authority in her (limited) field. Her children are extremely successful. Maybe because I am one of those from our year without impressive credentials or a listing in academic or business rosters, it's mere envy that makes me not want to attend along with her. When I consider my actual aspirations, I honestly think it's in spite of her presence that I want to stay home, not because of it. However fond we are of those people we remember, that fondness is instantly overridden if we are seeing them again for the first time in a decade or more. Nothing (or almost nothing) appears the same on the surface. There's no time, even if there's an inclination to delve deeper even if I want to be bothered. There has to be some reason we lost touch. More likely, there are a raft of them.I hope I invented the term "scrim of memory." It's that wonderful veil that softens edges and dims contrasts that helps us to recall happy times happily. A reunion can do more to dispel that helpful mental fiction than anything else I know.
The presence of too many bald realities together makes it impossible to retain what we value most about our pasts. However fond we are of those people we remember, that fondness is instantly overridden if we are seeing them all together again after a decade or more. Of course, a group affair is a vastly different thing from an accidental meeting with an individual from the old days.
One day my husband and I had taken our two young sons to New York. We were sitting facing the old sea lion pool outdoors in Central Park Zoo on a lovely May day. Striding along the path came a classmate of mine from college. We had actually been engaged to be married at one time. From his pictures, my husband recognized him almost at the same moment I did. We exchanged glances that went through the instantaneous list of possibilities: to greet him with hopefully disguised pride in our boys and each other, and our apparent current position in the world; to do our best to avoid what could be an embarrassing confrontation for me who had broken our engagement; to wait to see what he would do …then act accordingly?
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